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THE FRANCE OF 
JOAN OF ARC 



By Lieutenant-Colonel 

ANDREW C. P. HAGGARD, D.S.O. 

Author of *' Sidelights on the Court of France," " Louis XVL and Marie 

Antoinette," "The Armours of Henri de Navarre and of Marguerite de 

Valois," " Two Worlds : A Romance," etc. etc. 



WITH PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE 
AND SIXTEEN OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 
JOHN LANE COMPANY 

MCMXII 



PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN 



Bm 



An 3 laii 






CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. A BEGINNING OF DISCORD (1380 AND LATER) II 
II. THE RISING POWER OF BURGUNDY (1380-I4OO) 22 

III. WILD YOUTH AND MADNESS OF CHARLES VL 

(1384-1392) . . ... . .34 

IV. THE KING PLAYS CARDS — QUEEN ISABEAU 

UNFAITHFUL— THE POPES (1392-140O) . 48 

V. THE QUARREL OF 0RL]£ANS AND BURGUNDY 

(1400-1407) 57 

VI. THE COMTE D'ARMAGNAC ON THE SCENE 

(1408-1413) . . . . . . .69 

VIL THE REVOLUTION OF THE BUTCHERS (1413) . 84 

Vin. HOW HENRY V. TOOK HARFLEUR (1415) . . 98 

IX. THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT (1415) . . . II4 

X. THE COMTE D'ARMAGNAC ALMOST KING (141S- 

I417) 131 

XL THE MASSACRES OF THE ARMAGNACS (1418) . 14O 

XIL HOW HENRY V. TOOK ROUEN (1418-I419) . 1 53 

7 



8 Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIII. THE DAUPHIN MURDERS JEAN SANS PEUR 

(1419) 166 

XIV. THE GREATNESS OF HENRY V. (142O-I422) . 1 76 

XV. THE AWFUL CONDITION OF FRANCE (142O- 

1422) 193 

XVI. GILLES DE RETZ, DEVIL- WORSHIPPER (1422 

AND LATER) 201 

XVII. THE DIPLOMACY OF YOLANDE (1422-1428) . 21$ 

XVin. "THE BATTLE OF THE HERRINGS" (1429) . 23 1 

XIX. CHARLES AND THE MAID (1428-I429) . . 24a 

XX. JOAN'S D£BUT (1429). . . . . .254 

XXL JOAN'S EXPLOITS AT ORLEANS (MAY 1 429) . 269 

XXIL JOAN FIGHTS, CONQUERS—AND FAILS (1429- 

1430) 289 

XXIIL HOW JOAN WAS SOLD (1430) . . . • 30S 
XXIV. JOAN IN HER CHAINS (143O-I431) . . .321 
XXV. JOAN RETRACTS (MAY I431) . , . -337 

XXVI. JOAN'S RELAPSE AND EXECUTION (MAY I431) . 35a 

INDEX 365 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

JOAN OF ARC, FROI^I A PAINTING BY T. BLAKE WIRGMAN Frontispiece 

PACE 

BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN 17 

CHARLES V. OF FRANCE l<, 

ISABEAU OF BAVARIA, WIFE OF CHARLES VI 53 

JEAN SANS PEUR, DUG DE BOURGOGNE 7 1 

THE SAVING OF CHARLES VI. AT THE BURNING OF THE 

SATYRS . . . 105 

CHARLES VII. OF FRANCE . . . . . . . I23 

JOAN'S HOME AT DOM-REMY I4I 

JEAN POTON, SEIGNEUR DE XAINTRAILLES, MARECHAL DE 

FRANCE . . 159. 

STATUE OF JOAN OF ARC BY V. DUBOIS 177 

JOAN WOUNDED AT THE SIEGE OF PARIS . . . . 2H 

ENTRANCE TO JOAN'S SLEEPING-ROOM 229. 

FROM THE PAINTING BY INGRES IN THE MUSEE DU LOUVRE, 

PARIS 247 

THE EXCHANGE OF RAIMENT 265, 

HENRY VI. OF ENGLAND 299 

JOAN OF ARC, FROM A PAINTING BY M. RAYMOND BALZE . 317 

JOAN OF ARC AT THE STAKE 335, 



9 



The France of Joan of Arc 

CHAPTER I 
A Beginning of Discord 

1380 and Later 

With the exception of the privileged few, who en- 
joyed life through the sufferings which they inflicted 
upon others, the inhabitants of the country of France 
had but a miserable time of it in the years imme- 
diately preceding the coming of Joan of Arc. 

Torn by wars from end to end — wars with Eng- 
land, which owned the great Duchy of Aquitaine, 
with the Duchy of Brittany, with Castile, or with 
Flanders — the country was overrun by the Free 
Companies. These, under noble captains who were 
no better than brigands, when not serving for pay 
under one party or the other, roamed about, burning, 
pillaging, ravishing, and destroying at their own sweet 
will. Life was a hell and France a ruin. The 
country had sunk to a depth of misery of which 
neither before nor since has the like been seen on 
the fair plains of Gaul. 

Charles V. and his great Breton Constable 
Du Guesclin both died in the autumn of the same 
year, 1380, when Charles, so-called **le Sage," left 



12 The France of Joan of Arc 



i 



I 



everything in an unfinished condition, and only a 
twelve-year-old son to succeed him to put matters 
in order. The great schism of the Church, whereby 
while one Pope ruled at Rome in Italy another oc- 
cupied the Papal throne at Avignon in France, was 
one of these matters. Others were the war in 
Brittany, the insurrection in Languedoc, and the re- 
volution in Flanders. Nevertheless, in spite of all 
the money which he had given to the English an 
the Free Companies, Charles V. left plenty of mone 
behind him. The sum of seventeen millions of livres, 
which he had saved, was found hidden in a wall at 
Vincennes. 

The first of the French Monarchs who can be said 
to have had anything worth calling a policy, that of 
Charles V. consisted in strengthening the towns, the 
bourgeois, against the old feudal nobility who had 
formerly been practically little kinglets in their re- 
spective provinces. The bourgeois of Paris were 
enabled to acquire feudal fiefs ; they were allowed to 
array themselves like the Knights. A new nobility 
of traders was created, into whose hands passed many 
of the great estates depending upon the King. Thus 
a balance of power was established, and the prestige 
and power of the old noblesse lowered. By keeping 
his own Pope at Avignon under his thumb, the King 
had contrived to retain the disposition of the rich 
benefices in his own hands. He did not dare, how- 
ever, to lay his hands upon the riches of the Church. 

From the old feudal Suzerainty, by the policy of ; 
Charles V., a new and central Monarchy had sprung 
up. He had taken the backbone out of feudality 
wherewith to fortify himself; but when the thunders 



A Beginning of Discord 13 

of war rattled about his ears he sought to restore it 
to its old strength. But the French chivalry, while 
retaining its pride, had become but the shadow of 
its former self, and thus it broke at a touch, and the 
employment of mercenary soldiers became an absolute 
necessity. These mercenaries could not, however, 
be maintained without large sums of money to pay 
them ; and, since the pockets of the Church could 
not be touched, these payments became impossible. 
Accordingly, at the end of the reign of Charles V., 
in spite of all his political wisdom, he found himself 
utterly unable to resist the English as he had a dozen 
years earlier. 

His system had failed ; and he died, leaving the 
system of wisdom to be followed by that of madness 
and extravagance. 

With the coming of Charles VI. there was in 
France a recrudescence, or rather, an imitation, of 
the old-time chivalry. 

Although the people of the country were ruined 
already, this new and artificial chivalry of Charles VI. 
indulged in the wildest extravagance. The costliness 
of arms and armour, the gorgeousness of armorial 
bearings, were exaggerated. Jousts and tourneys were 
continual, and indulged in at the wildest expense, for 
which the down-trodden people were, of course, com- 
pelled to pay. 

Yet were the old knightly customs so absolutely 
forgotten that when the ceremony took place of the 
knighting of the young King's cousins, the sons of 
the Due d'Anjou, none of those present at the investiture 
could understand the signification of the ancient rites 
employed. 



14 The France of Joan of Arc | 

The youthful Charles VI. — or should we not rather 
say those princely Dues his uncles ? — -commenced the 
new reign by a series of dazzling fetes in the Abbey 
of Saint-Denis. 

At these festivals immense display was made of 
all the pomp and panoply of heraldry. And yet, 
although the walls were bedecked with ancient blazons 
and escutcheons, but vainly could the onlooker have 
searched the brilliant assembly for scions of many 
an ancient line whose shields, which had done service 
in the Crusades, hung intermixed with those of a 
nobility of more recent creation. 

Strange were the costumes worn at this festival 
at Saint-Denis. The fine ladies, the pretty daughters 
of the nobles, seemed at the same time to have chosen 
the style of their dress from the saints and the demons. 
While, suspended from their headdress, they carried m 
the precious veils which were used to attire the Holy 
Virgin in the religious processions, these headdresses 
themselves were surmounted by immense horns. 

Juvenal des Ursins says : ** These marvellous 
horns were high and wide, and had on each side, in 
place of padded caps, two great ears, so wide that . 
when they would pass through the door of a chamber, 
they were forced both to turn sideways and to stoop.'* 
As for the men, the toes of their shoes were twisted 
into horns, into claws, into scorpion's stings. The 
women, so strangely attired with their immense horns 
and bare bosoms, towered above the men, their smiling 
faces seeming rather those of devil-sent witches and 
warlocks than of aught that was modest or feminine. 
Many of the men were apparelled more like women 
than the women themselves, dragging trains behind 



A Beginning of Discord 15 

them a dozen yards in length. While their trousers 
were closely fitting to the leg, their immense sleeves 
swept the ground. Upon these sleeves were repre- 
sented all kinds of strange devices worked in em- 
broidery or jewels. The Due d'Orleans, for instance, 
is mentioned as having the words and notes of the 
music of the song *' Madame, je suis plus joyeux," 
worked in pearls upon his sleeves. Every note was 
formed of four pearls, and there were in all nearly a 
thousand pearls upon his dress. 

The only persons who wore the insignia of 
Royalty — flowing red robes trimmed with ermine furs — 
were by no means Royal. They were mere bourgeois 
who had originally been scribes of the Parliament of 
the Barons, but who now had, by the grace of the late 
King, blossomed out into magistrates and judges, 
before whom the Barons, their former masters, might 
be called for judgment. The young Charles VI. 
himself disdained to wear these heavy robes, but 
preferred to attire himself in the short jacket of the 
people, and to run about and amuse himself among 
the crowds, to whom, thus travestied, he was un- 
known. 

At this period not only was there discord in 
France, but all over Europe. There were internecine 
wars between contesting rulers in the Empire, in 
Italy, in Portugal, and in Aragon. In England the 
way was being paved for the future struggle between 
the Red Rose of Lancaster and the White Rose of 
York, while France herself was preparing for the 
bloody and long-drawn-out contest between the 
Armagnacs and the Burgundians. 

Behold then, in these troublous times, seated 



1 6 The France of Joan of Arc 

upon the throne of France, which had been recently 
much consolidated by war, marriage, treaty, and 
inheritance, one who was not only a mere child, but, 
at the same time, a more actual King than any of his 
predecessors. 

Not only had the kingdom been extended, in- 
dependent, or semi-independent countries such as 
Champagne, Dauphine, Guyenne, Flanders, and the 
Duchy and the County of Burgundy fallen to the 
Crown, but the great lords, the Seigneurs, by sub- 
mitting to the principle of appeal to the monarch, had 
placed themselves in his hands. In place of, as 
heretofore, waging war with one another merely upon 
their own account, the rulers of these great States, and 
many lesser ones, now placed their swords in the 
hands of the King of France, and looked to him as 
Suzerain for the signal to commence the battle. 

To control this rising power of a recently united 
France there was a boy of feeble will and violent 
disposition — -which way, then, would the newly con- 
stituted country turn, in what direction give vent 
to its energies ? 

In addition to an aunt (Jeanne), married to King 
Charles II. of Navarre, and another aunt (Isabelle), 
the spouse of Duke Gian ViscontI, of Milan, the young 
King, Charles VI., had three uncles, all violent men, 
greedy of money and power. These three sons of 
the unfortunate King Jean II., who was for so long 
after Poitiers a prisoner in England, were Louis, 
Due d'Anjou et Provence, Philippe, Due de Bour- 
gogne, and Jean, Due de Berri. The two former, 
although practically reigning Sovereigns in their re- 
spective appanages, did not on that account cease to 




BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN. 



17 



i 



A Beginning: of Discord 19 

be Frenchmen, while the third, who had no such 
independent position, jealously maintained his great 
inherited status as son, brother, and uncle of Kings 
of France throughout his long life. He became the 
scourge of Languedoc and Guyenne. 

All of these uncles sought to lead the young King 
in the direction which best suited their respective 
interests, and all disputed the Regency. After facing 
each other at the head of an armed force, Anjou and 
Bourgogne eventually submitted their rival claims to 
the Parliament of Paris, when the former was adjudged 
to be Regent. The personal care of the child-King 
was, however, awarded to his maternal uncle Louis, 
Due de Bourbon. 

The violent and avaricious nature of Louis, Due 
dAnjou, became patent from the outset. When the 
Treasurer of the late King Charles V. hesitated to 
break the oath which he had sworn not to reveal the 
hiding-place of a treasure of golden ingots in the wall 
of the castle of Melun, Louis soon brought him to 
reason. 

** Send for the executioner with his sword ! " 

The man of blood appeared in a minute. 

** Cut me off this man's head ! " 

The Treasurer barely saved his head by instantly 
disclosing the hiding-place. 

The uncles took the young Charles VL to Reims, 
and there had him crowned with great magnificence; 
but as they did not abolish the ancient taxes the 
people, who were crying out for bread, rose in revolt, 
and brutally murdered the tax-collectors both in Paris 
and Rouen. 

The Princes were obliged to give way, and, after 



20 The France of Joan of Arc 

threatening Paris with an armed force, the Due 
d'Anjou granted the bourgeois their lives in return 
for the small sum of a hundred thousand francs, which 
was all that could be obtained wherewith to carry on 
the government of the country. 

Then, having been adopted as her heir by Queen 
Joanna I. of Naples, Anjou left Paris for Italy to 
oppose Charles de Durazzo, the rival pretender to 
the Neapolitan Crown. Before leaving France in 
1382, after two years of the Regency, the Due 
d' Anjou contrived, however, to pillage the country 
from end to end. He did not neglect to plunder the 
Pope of Avignon, whom he forced to connive at his 
so-called loans from the Church ; and, after having 
caused the clergy to sell for his benefit even their 
chalices, ornaments, and holy missals, he marched off 
laden with treasure, and followed by the curses of the 
people. In Italy he arrived too late to save Queen 
Joanna from Durazzo, who had caused her to be 
suffocated, and after two miserable years, during 
which both his army and money had disappeared, 
even his crown having been sold, Louis d'Anjou, 
Comte de Provence and nominal King of Naples, 
died wretchedly of fever at a place called Bari. 

Jean, Due de Berri, meanwhile, having no other 
means of establishing himself to his satisfaction, 
caused his youthful nephew to nominate him as 
Governor of Languedoc and Guyenne. Marching 
off to the south, he ruled these two great provinces 
in the most absolute fashion, and with a rod of iron. 
There for a time he was contented to remain, nor 
did he trouble himself with the concerns of the rest 
of France. 



A Beginning of Discord 2i 

Thus the rule both of Charles VI., the King, and 
of the remainder of the country was left in the hands 
of the powerful Prince known to the French as 
Philippe le Hardi, Due de Bourgogne — to the English 
as Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. He was 
the first of the three Dukes of Burgundy who, by 
their greed, their quarrels with the Orleanist or 
Armagnac faction, and their alliances, either open 
or secret, with the English, brought such terrible 
additional troubles upon the already distracted land 
of France. By their direct action these French 
Princes, who were at the same time independent 
rulers of a neighbouring and powerful State, reduced 
the Monarchy of France to such an abject condition 
that it required nothing short of a miracle to restore 
it to the condition which it had attained under the 
rule of Charles V. — the Wise. How that miracle 
was eventually accomplished through the human 
agency of that heaven-sent woman, Jeanne d'Arc, 
commonly known as La Pucelle or the Virgin Maid, 
it will be the task of the writer of these pages to 
portray. 



CHAPTER II 

The Rising Power of Burgundy 

1380 — 1400 

The immense feudal dependency of the Duchy of 
Burgundy had first been granted by Robert, King 
of France, as an appanage to his son Robert, the 
first Duke, at the beginning of the eleventh century. 
The separate County Palatine of Burgundy, with 
which the great County of Flanders soon became 
incorporated, was then vested in a separate line, 
which commenced with Rainald I. 

The Duchy, but not the County, reverted to the 
Crown of France when, in 13 13, the Prince who 
became King Philip VI. of France married the 
Burgundian heiress Jeanne. Their son was King 
Jean II., and one of their grandsons Philippe " le 
Hardi," to whom the Duchy again passed as a separate 
appanage. This Philippe, Due de Bourgogne, was 
successful, after considerable opposition on the part 
of her father, Louis III. de Male, in contracting a 
marriage with Marguerite, the heiress of the Counties 
of Burgundy and Flanders, to which Counties he 
expected to succeed on the death of his father-in-law. 

Being the uncle of the boy-king Charles VI. when 
a revolution took place in Flanders which seemed to 



The Rising Power of Burgundy 23 

place his succession in jeopardy, Due Philippe marched 
his young nephew off with an army into the Low 
Countries, where the ** Whitecaps," under the leader- 
ship of a bourgeois of Ghent, were committing horrible 
atrocities, especially upon all of noble birth. 

The Due de Berri had his hands full likewise 
in Languedoc, where the starving peasantry were 
ruthlessly slaughtering the nobles and priests. So 
cruel were they that they murdered a Scottish knight, 
after first crowning him with a red-hot iron crown, 
and at the same time a monk, after spitting him upon 
a heated iron spit. 

In Flanders the crisis had been partly brought 
about by the domination, violence, and exactions of 
their French Count, Louis de Male ; but the bitterness 
of the struggle was intensified by the jealousies and 
hatred for each other of the cities of Ghent and 
Bruges. 

Between these two there was raging bloody 
war, while distant towns, such as Liege, Courtrai, or 
Brussels, and even the County of Holland, encouraged 
or assisted one side or the other, sending men, arms, 
or provisions to the combatants. 

The Comte de Flandre was in Bruges. There, 
after forty thousand Brugeois had been defeated by 
only five thousand workmen from Ghent, under the 
famous Philippe Artevelde, these latter entered the 
city with the defeated force and slaughtered their 
rivals indiscriminately. As for the Comte, Louis de 
Male, this father-in-law of the Due de Bourgogne 
only escaped by hiding himself in an old woman's bed. 

When the people of Ghent retired they completed 
the discomfiture and humiliation of Bruges by carrying 



24 The France of Joan of Arc 

off with them a famous trophy. This was a great 
dragon of gilt copper, which Baudoin, or Baldwin, 
of Flanders, Emperor of Constantinople, had brought 
from the church of Saint Sophia about the year 1 204. 
It had been the crowning adornment of the great 
cloth-manufacturer's hall in Bruges. 

It was an easy matter for the expectant heir of 
Flanders to convince the young Charles VI. that 
scoundrels who could behave in such a manner were 
deserving of punishment, and especially as they had 
overrun Tournai, which was then French territory. 
In the hopes of rich booty, crowds of Normans, 
Bretons, and Burgundians flocked to the standard of 
Charles, and soon the pillagers were having a merry 
time of it, packing up, selling, or sending to their 
homes everything of value which Flanders produced. 

The story of the battle of Roosebeke, near Courtrai, 
is one of a horrible massacre. In order the better to 
preserve their order while charging, and not to be 
separated by the mounted men-at-arms, the people of 
Ghent foolishly tied themselves together, and ad- 
vanced with pikes into the mass of their opponents. 
Soon they were entirely surrounded by the gens 
darmes, whose lances were longer than their pikes. 
While the people composing the outer flanks were 
being pitilessly slaughtered, the four faces of the great 
battalion were forced in upon the centre. None could 
fly, and those composing the mass in the centre 
were suffocated ; their bones actually cracked from 
the pressure. 

When all were dead the youthful Charles, who had 
been kept in safety in the rear, was brought by his 
uncles of Bourgogne and Bourbon to view the carnage. 



The Rising Power of Burgundy 25 

He was on horseback, and they persuaded the now 
fourteen-year-old lad that he had been himself the 
conqueror, the glorious author of this awful and almost 
bloodless massacre. Bloodless, since Froissart says 
that there was an immense mountain of the dead 
Flemings, but never in a battle was so little blood 
seen, owing to the greater number having been 
killed by suffocation. 

The young King, after this battle of Roosebeke, 
became drunken with the lust of blood. Being taken 
back to Courtrai by the Due de Bourgogne, a rich 
Flemish town which would form part of the succession 
the Due was waiting for, somebody mentioned to 
Charles the fact that there were retained there several 
thousand gilt spurs of former French Knights. These 
Knights, under Philippe le Bel, had been defeated by 
the Flemish at the battle of Courtrai in 1302. The 
blood of Charles VI. boiled with rage. In spite of 
his uncle, he ordered the sacking and subsequent 
burning of the city of Courtrai. 

The boy was all for continuing the war in Flanders, 
but winter had come and the Flemish remained in 
arms. The King's uncles therefore reminded Charles 
that Paris was still in a rebellious mood, and suggested 
that it would be wiser and easier to punish the re- 
calcitrant Parisians with the force at his disposal. To 
welcome their conquering Prince, and at the same time 
to overawe him, the Parisians turned out well-armed 
before Montmartre. Froissart says that " there were 
of the city of Paris rich and powerful men armed 
cap-a-pie to the number of thirty thousand, as well 
armed and apparelled as any Knight could be." 

The triumphant force of the boy-King snapped its 



26 The France of Joan of Arc 

fingers at these armed citizens. The barriers of Paris 
were thrown down, the gates torn from their hinges 
by the haughty chivalry, and cast upon the King's 
roadway. All the army trampled scornfully upon the 
gates of Paris while upon its march into the city. 
The King, armed, with lance on thigh, looked neither 
to the right nor left, returned no salutes, as he con- 
tinued his proud progress to the Cathedral of Notre- 
Dame. The soldiers installed themselves by force in 
the houses of the bourgeois, whom, moreover, they 
ordered, with savage threats, to disarm at once. The 
terrified inhabitants of the city thereupon brought all 
of their arms — enough to arm eight hundred thousand 
men — and disposed them in front of the Palace of the 
Louvre. The King, or rather the Due de Bour- 
gogne, now had the rebellious Paris at his mercy, and 
it was determined to punish the city which had dared 
to refuse to pay the taxes and murdered the officials 
sent to collect them. 

Two new forts to control the town were erected, 
and the executions were commenced without delay. 
Many of the innocent suffered among the guilty, but, 
as the Due de Berri had declared that the whole 
of the population of Paris deserved death, that was 
not looked upon as a matter of consequence. When 
many had already suffered the death penalty, and the 
prayers for the lives of the remainder proffered to the 
King by the University had been openly refused, 
advantage was taken of the terror-stricken Parisians 
in a prearranged scene. 

The King, with his uncles and many great lords, 
took his seat on a throne in a gorgeous tent, which 
was highly raised outside his palace. The courtyard 



The Rising Power of Burgundy 27 

in front was crowded with people — men, women and 
children — most piteously begging for mercy. They 
were forcibly quieted, and compelled to listen while 
the King's Chancellor read aloud the enumeration 
of their crimes, and declared them all to merit instant 
death, with tortures. 

The wailings of the people recommenced ; they 
were convinced that their last moments had arrived. 

The uncles and Louis d'Orleans, the King's young 
brother, pretended to be touched. They threw them- 
selves at the King's feet and begged for clemency, 
prayed that, in his Royal mercy, he might commute 
the death penalty to a fine. 

Fear had its effect ; while immense sums, amount- 
ing to five, six, or eight thousand livres, were demanded 
from all well-to-do bourgeois, they untied their purse- 
strings readily. When they had, in some instances, 
paid all that they possessed, all the old taxes were, 
to the sound of the trumpet, first reimposed, then 
augmented, then increased once more. 

The chains which had formerly been fastened 
across the streets had been taken away, the ProvOst 
of the Merchants and the Sheriffs had been beheaded, 
the people were entirely unarmed, and at the mercy 
of the men-at-arms. 

What could they do but pay to the uttermost 
farthing that they possessed, or could beg or borrow ? 
They did so, saved their lives — and starved. 

As Paris had been treated so were Rouen, Chalons, 
Reims, Orleans, Troyes, and Sens. 

It might have been imagined that the money thus 
wrung by the extortion of the King's uncles was 
employed for the purposes of carrying on the govern- 



28 The France of Joan of Arc 

ment of the country. Far from such being the case, 
the greater part of it passed into the pockets of the 
great nobles and their followers. 

The pride of these nobles, the chivalry of France, 
and the pride of the young King himself, however, 
reached extravagant bounds. They congratulated 
themselves that they had crushed the insolence of 
the lower orders in Belgium, crushed it likewise in 
France, of which country the lower orders had 
directly instigated the Flemish population to rise in 
revolt. 

The King of France had not, however, crushed 
the Flemings, and, as the discontent continued 
in what is now Belgium, two more expeditions 
were sent to quiet the revolted people. At the 
same time the English, the commercial allies and 
hitherto friends of the people of the Low Coun- 
tries, attacked them also. Upon the grounds that 
the Flemings were schismatics, followers of the 
Pope of Avignon, the Bishop of Norwich landed 
with an army and took many towns, including Grave- 
lines, which had nothing but friendly feelings towards 
England. Some cities, such as Cassel, were first 
taken by the English, then pillaged by the French. 
The boy, Charles VI., whose blood-thirstiness had 
not subsided since Roosebeke, determined to take a 
town by assault — to enter by the breach. This gallant 
feat he accomplished at Bergues, escalading the walls 
although the town had already opened its gates to 
surrender. 

Despite the request of Louis de Male, Bourgogne's 
father-in-law, for more forcible and useful measures 
than the attack of undefended cities, the Comte de 



The Rising Power of Burgundy 29 

Flandre was not listened to. The stronghold of the 
insurrection was Ghent, a large and well-fortified city, 
but the French and Burgundians shrank from the 
task of a long and difficult siege. The Due de Berri, 
who had left his Languedoc to take a leading part 
in the Flemish war, moreover, realised that he was 
only fighting for the interests of his brother of 
Burgundy, the heir to Flanders. The country was 
wet, cold, and foggy ; he longed to return to the 
sunny south in Languedoc. 

Suddenly the Comte de Flandre died. The 
Flemish maintained that the Due de Berri had poign- 
arded his brother's father-in-law. There seems, 
however, to have been no reason for this action. It 
is not mentioned by either the Religieux de Saint- 
Denis or Froissart, the two principal authorities for 
this period. The Flemish chronicle which makes the 
assertion states that, having married the heiress of the 
County of Boulogne, of which the Comte de Flandre 
was Suzerain, Berri quarrelled with Louis de Male 
upon the subject of rendering homage. As the Due 
de Berri did not marry this young lady until some five 
years later, the story is evidently, false. He was, 
moreover, far milder by nature than either of his 
brothers, and by no means prone to personal deeds of 
bloodshed. 

Froissart says that the Comte died of sickness, 
and, in any case, the person most interested in the 
death of the Comte was the Due de Bourgogne. 

Philippe le Hardi now became the Comte de 
Flandre himself, in right of his wife, and, his posses- 
sions being so greatly increased by the addition of 
Flanders to Burgundy, he wisely determined at once to 



30 The France of Joan of Arc 

end the war with his new subjects, the Flemish. He 
accorded them, therefore, all the charters that they 
demanded, and soon excused them from following the 
ordinary procedure of a vassal when addressing his 
Suzerain, that of addressing him only on their knees. 

This peace was made in the middle of December, 
1384, and by the lenity of its terms this first great 
Duke of Burgundy showed that he was possessed of 
considerable political acumen. By his lenience he 
obtained far more than by severity, and, having the 
attachment of his new subjects, became the more 
powerful. 

Determined still fijrther to solidify his position as 
a sovereign in the centre of Europe, Philippe pro- 
ceeded to marry two of his children into the House of 
Bavaria, which owned Hainault, Holland, and Zealand : 
great provinces which flanked Flanders on the north 
and the south. He married his eldest son Jean, after- 
wards known as *' Sans Peur," to Marguerite, the 
daughter of Albert, Count of Holland, and his daughter 
Marguerite he gave to Albert's son William, who 
became Count William VI. of Holland. The father 
of Albert, Count of Holland, was the Emperor Louis 
of Bavaria, and, the further to strengthen himself with 
his young nephew the King of France, Philippe 
resolved to give him also as wife a young Princess of 
the House of Bavaria. 

The selection which he made of the skittish 
Isabeau, daughter of Stephen, Duke of Bavaria, can 
hardly have been said to be a happy one ; but we shall 
hear more of her later on. As a political move in his 
own interests, the marriage was a good one, however^ 
for the Due de Bourgogne. 



The Rising Power of Burgundy 31 

The young Bavarian Princess had moreover the 
advantage in good looks over two rivals of the Houses 
of Lorraine and Austria, whose portraits, like her 
own, were sent to Charles VI., for him to determine 
from them upon his choice. Had the portrait of 
Isabeau not been sufficiently prepossessing, the wily 
Burgundian would certainly have seen to that matter. 
The marriage with this young lady, who could not 
then speak a word of French, was to have taken place 
at Arras. Her husband was sixteen years old and 
she in her fifteenth year when she arrived, in great 
state, at Amiens. The young King was so pleased at 
her appearance that he declared that he would not 
wait a day, but married her on the spot. Judging by 
Froissart's mention of her demeanour at the ceremony, 
Isabeau showed more modesty on that occasion than 
others during her career : ** The young lady, while 
remaining standing, kept perfectly quiet, and moved 
neither eyelid nor mouth." 

With this marriage safely accomplished, the Due 
de Bourgogne felt himself on very firm ground, and 
consequently was inclined to do something great. He 
had a secure footing in France, had established him- 
self also in the Empire. The English were, as usual, 
devastating the south of France, also making war on 
Castile, the ally of France. The Burgundian Duke 
imagined, therefore, the bold idea of paying off" old 
scores with England, at one fell swoop, by invading 
her shores with an immense fleet, which was to carry 
an army. 

The idea was vastly popular among the nobles and 
Knights of France and Burgundy, who gaily set to 
work to procure vessels from all parts of Europe, 



32 The France of Joan of Arc 

mostly at their own expense, as they expected to 
recoup themselves in England. Their extravagance 
was ridiculous ! In rivalry with one another, as a 
hundred and twenty years later, at the Field of the 
Cloth of Gold, they did not scruple to ruin themselves 
in the decoration of ships which were at the best 
nothing but transports. Of these private ships 
Froissart says that thirteen hundred and eighty-seven 
were collected at Sluys, '* the navy of the Constable 
not being counted." 

The prows of the vessels were gilt, the masts 
silvered all over, while the silken flags were of immense 
size, and bore armorial designs of great magnificence. 

A township of wood, cut and made ready to be 
erected for the whole army on its landing on British 
shores, was ordered in Brittany. Seventy-two ships 
were laden with these wooden houses alone, and it 
was calculated that, when fitted and put together in a 
circle, the wooden town would have a diameter of 
about two and half miles. 

The Due de Bourgogne was doing something 
great with a vengeance, but although he had hitherto 
led the King of France, Charles VI. had the bad 
taste at the last moment to remember that his uncle 
was not for all practical purposes even a Frenchman, 
but the ruler of another country. Burgundy, and also 
of a third country — Flanders to wit. It would be the 
commercial interests of Flanders, not those of France, 
that would profit by the successful invasion of Eng- 
land. Charles determined therefore to take his time 
about embarking. The Due de Berri also contrived 
to delay the King, without any difficulty, by the 
festivities attending a foolish marriage of Royal 



The Rising Power of Burgundy . 33 

children, and meanwhile the summer passed away, 
and with it the fine weather which would have made 
an invasion possible. Charles dawdled until late in 
September. 

The Due de Berri refused, moreover, to hurry 
with his army to the point of embarkation ; his 
brother's written reproaches on this score were all in 
vain, and he did not arrive at Arras, the appointed 
place of meeting, until December, when, owing to 
the stormy weather, and the destruction of many of 
the ships, notably those carrying the wooden town, 
the expedition to annex England had to be abandoned. 

Not long after this, that border Prince, the Due 
de Gueldre, always a troublesome neighbour to 
Burgundy, paid homage to England and defied the 
King of France. Delighted at the opportunity of 
extending his influence, the Due de Bourgogne 
assembled another large French army, and without 
much difficulty brought Gueldre to his knees, not 
figuratively but literally, to make his excuses to 
Charles VI. The only person to profit by his humili- 
ation was the Due de Bourgogne. 



CHAPTER III 

Wild Youth and Madness of Charles VI 

1384— 1392 

Even before Charles VI. had attained his twentieth 
year, one of his principal counsellors was the bold 
Breton, Olivier de Clisson, whom he had made the 
Constable of France. De Clisson was the determined 
enemy of England, and had nearly lost his life as 
a traitor when fighting against Due Jean de Montfort, 
the ruling Duke of Brittany, who was the ally of the 
English. De Clisson's son-in-law was Jean, son of 
Charles de Blois, the occupant of the ducal throne 
of Brittany, who had been killed by the English and 
John de Montfort at the battle of Auray. While 
fighting to place young Blois in the place of Montfort, 
Clisson had been taken prisoner. Personal prowess 
or great family connection stood in those days for 
much more than mere devotion to country. The 
great nobles of Brittany, therefore, prevented their 
Duke from putting Clisson to death. The Sire de 
Laval said to his master : *' There will not be in 
Bretagne Knight or Squire, castle or good city, nor 
man of naught but will hate you with deadly hatred, 
and take pains to disinherit you. Neither the King 
of England nor his Council will thank you either. 

34 




CHARLES V. OF FRANCE, 



35 



Wild Youth and Madness of Charles VI 37 

You would lose yourself just for the life of one 
man." 

Accordingly de Clisson was spared, to remain the 
right-hand man and disinterested adviser of the young 
French King. After this latter had seen how little 
he gained personally from his various military expedi- 
tions, which seemed but to turn to his various uncles' 
advantage, Clisson advised him to take a pacific 
course, and free himself from his uncles' thrall. 

Charles, however, reached his twenty-first year and 
still remained a slave. Then, with the aid of various 
great Bishops, the aid also of La Riviere, the favourite 
counsellor of the late Charles V., the discomfiture of 
the uncles was planned. At length, in a great meeting 
at Reims, the plot was carried out. One of the 
Bishops publicly praised the King, and, after enume- 
rating all his good qualities, remarked that he wanted 
in nothing but to reign alone. 

" Quite so," replied Charles VI. Then, turning to 
his uncles de Bourgogne and Berri, he thanked them 
for their past services and added that the time had 
come for them to take themselves off to their respective 
Governments, and the more so as he felt sure that 
Burgundy and Languedoc must require their presence. 
His mother's brother, the Due de Bourbon, Charles, 
however, asked to remain with him. 

The Dues de Bourgogne and de Berri duly 
departed, but the Bishop of Laon, who had suggested 
to the King that he was capable of ruling alone, died 
of poison. 

Now began the rule of the counsellors nicknamed 
the ** Marmousets," or people of no importance. 

The Government was not a bad one. A truce 
3 



3 8 The France of Joan of Arc 

was entered Into with England, and efforts were made 
to abolish the great schism in the Church. The 
King, however, having given up his ideas of warlike 
glory, commenced to lead a life of absolute folly in 
time of peace. Tourneys, fetes, balls, and all kinds 
of love-affairs and passing amourettes now filled the 
existence of the young Monarch. 

Spending himself with both hands, Charles gave 
away with both hands also. Any excuse served as a 
means for expense. To crown a week of wild ex- 
travagance at Saint-Denis, to which place all the 
nobility of both England and France were invited, 
and where fine ladies lived among the monks in the 
abbey, Charles conceived the idea of a splendid 
funeral. 

As nobody of consequence happened to die just 
then, he decided to bury the famous Breton warrior, 
Bertrand Du Guesclln, who had already been dead for 
four years. Du Guesclin's funeral was certainly a great 
success, most certainly also it cost a mint of money. 
Another extravagant idea devised by Charles was the 
Royal entry of his Queen, Isabeau, into Paris. Since 
her child-marriage, five years earlier, Isabeau had 
been in Paris hundreds of times. Her ** First Entry" 
was, nevertheless, celebrated with every symbol of 
pomp and magnificence. Paris seems to have gone 
mad with crazy gaiety over this fete, when, whether 
in possession of money or no, every bourgeois, every 
bourgeois' wife and daughter, felt called upon to 
celebrate the occasion with mirth, folly, and licence. 
The merchants of the city dressed themselves all in 
green, the followers of the various Princes were all 
attired in pink, while hanging out of every window 



Wild Youth and Madness of Charles VI 39 

were to be seen bevies of laughing girls clad in 
scarlet silken robes, with golden waist-bands. 

Angels and saints were to be seen descending 
from heaven, swinging on ropes with golden crowns 
in their hands, fountains spurted milk and wine in 
all directions, and the semi-religious theatrical repre- 
sentations known as '* mysteries " were performed in 
every open space. Meanwhile the young King, dis- 
guised as a city lad, roamed the streets amid the 
crowd to watch the Queen's procession pass by. In 
the evening he boasted to the ladies of the Court 
that he had received ** several good whacks on the 
head " from the sergeants of the watch for daring 
to approach too closely. 

Not content with this exploit, Charles VI. joined 
in the joustings which formed part of this festival, 
doing so simply because he had heard that there 
were many strangers in the city who had said that 
it would delight them greatly to see the King in a 
tourney. 

The occasion for another magnificent festival was 
found when the King s brother, Louis, Due d'Orleans, 
married his Italian cousin Valentina Visconti, a young 
Princess of Milan. Could the giddy Charles but 
have foreseen what oceans of French, Spanish, 
German, Swiss, and Italian blood this marriage was 
to cost Europe some generations later even he in 
his folly would not have considered its celebration 
at Melun an occasion for wild and extravagant re- 
joicings. Since the future is, however, fortunately 
hidden from mortal ken, Charles had no cause to 
restrain his wild exuberance of spirits when the 
amiable daughter of Duke Gian Galeazzo and Isabella 



40 The France of Joan of Arc 

de France brought her charms and her ultimate 
claims to Milan together to the land of France. 
The nature of Valentina was singularly sweet, as 
she showed no less by the ascendancy which she 
acquired over the feeble mind of the wild young 
King than by the loving forgiveness which she ac- 
corded to the glaring infidelities of her husband. She 
did not come portionless to France, as she brought 
with her the sum of four hundred and fifty thousand 
florins and the Italian province of Asti as dowry. 

After the marriage of his brother, having received 
pitiable reports from a monk of the maladministration 
of Languedoc by his uncle, the Due de Berri, Charles 
determined to make the tour of France. Thinking 
that he could enjoy himself better without the presence 
of either uncles or wife, he took this journey en garfon. 
It was for the young King but one long pleasure- 
trip, during which all the young beauties of the country 
appear to have flung themselves at his feet, where he 
did not allow them to remain long before stooping to 
raise them to his arms. 

At no place of sojourn did Charles pass a more 
pleasant time than at Avignon, with the French Pope, 
Clement VII., who must not be confounded with the 
ItaHan Giulio de Medici, called Clement VII., one 
hundred years later. According to Froissart, although 
he and his companions '* were lodged with the Pope 
and Cardinals, yet could they not restrain themselves, 
but passed every night in dances, in carols, and in 
merrymakings with the ladies and damoiselles of 
Avignon, while f^tes were given to them by the 
Comte de Geneve, the Pope's brother. 

When the King left Avignon he left many rich 



Wild Youth and Madness of Charles VI 41 

gifts among the ladles of that place, " who all praised 
him highly." He had also established himself on 
terms of great friendship with the Pope of Avignon, 
who conferred upon the King's young cousin, the 
Due d'Anjou, that title of King of Naples which had 
cost his father his life in Italy. To the King the Pope 
made the splendid gift of seven hundred and fifty 
benefices, including the disposition of the Arch- 
bishopric of Reims. 

Upon arrival at Montpellier in Languedoc, although 
Charles found his time once more pretty fully occupied 
by those whom Froissart calls the ** frisques [frisky ?] 
damoiselles," he was soon enlightened as to his uncle 
of Berri's playful mode of administering the country. 

A trait of the Due de Berri was generosity — this 
in his own Duchy of Berri was genuine, and there he 
was beloved. In Languedoc, however, he made the 
people give him that which he himself gave away so 
liberally in turn to those who pleased him, notably to 
the twelve-year-old daughter of the great Comte de 
Foix whom, when himself sixty, he had married. To 
his jester he made a little present of a hundred 
thousand francs. Devoted to architecture, he built 
freely ; most beautiful churches were his handiwork, 
and he endowed their clergy liberally. To escape 
from having to provide for Berri's liberalities any 
longer, fifty thousand persons from Languedoc had 
emigrated to Spain, to the kingdom of Aragon. 

As a satisfaction to the people of Languedoc, 
Charles VI. caused his uncle's treasurer to be burned 
alive under his windows when at Toulouse. Also in 
honour of his visit to that city, he accorded a strange 
mark of his Royal favour to the gay women of the 



42 The France of Joan of Arc 

place, who were compelled then to reside in what were 
called ** abbeys." To the great joy of these chaste 
nuns, he absolved them from being obliged for the 
future to wear an especial costume or uniform, and 
permitted them to dress as they pleased. His Royal 
Edict on this weighty point is still in existence. 
Charles VI. returned to Paris at the age of twenty- 
two, blas^ at that early age with the excitements of 
life. He had passed several years as a warrior in 
various campaigns, several more as a votary of plea- 
sure. To rational enjoyment of any kind he was soon 
to be fated to become a stranger. 

Some little time after the King's return to the 
capital a most daring attempt was made to assassinate 
the head of the Marmousets, the Constable de Clisson. 

The Due Jean de Montfort, ruler of Brittany, had 
never been able to forgive himself for having allowed 
Clisson to escape alive from his hands. He had, 
however, in his service a powerful Seigneur from 
Anjou, one who hated Clisson, whom he feared would 
punish him for his malpractices should he ever have 
the opportunity of so doing. This noble's name was 
Pierre de Craon. He was rightly detested by the Royal 
House of France, for the reason that he it was who 
had robbed Louis, Due d' Anjou, of his treasure when 
upon his ill-fated expedition into Italy to secure the 
kingdom of Naples. 

The Due de Berri had once called de Craon a 
traitor to his face, and, after accusing him of his 
brother's untimely death, ordered his people to arrest 
him. None, however, had dared so to do, and the 
Angevin had then escaped into Brittany. There he 
knew that he was a marked man and feared Clisson's 



Wild Youth and Madness of Charles VI 43 

partisans. Craon feared the more the influence of 
Clisson from the fact that the widow of Anjou, now 
called Queen of Sicily, who had vowed his destruction, 
was the daughter of the late Charles de Blois, Due de 
Bretagne, and consequently the sister of Jean de 
Blois, the young Prince who had married Clisson's 
daughter. 

From the above explanations it will be understood 
that the fear of Jean de Montfort for the redoubtable 
Breton, Constable of France, was equalled by that of 
Pierre de Craon. The two put their heads together 
and the latter promised to the Due de Bretagne that 
he would rid him of their mutual enemy. 

Secretly Craon returned from Brittany, and, having 
entered Paris by night, repaired to his own house, 
the Hotel du March^-Saint-Jean. Remaining there 
concealed, he secretly filled the place with cut- 
throats. 

Upon June 13, 1392, which was a holy day of great 
rejoicing, the Constable de Clisson was present at a 
fete in the King's Palace named the Hotel Saint- 
Paul. But slenderly attended, he was returning home 
after midnight, when in a dark and silent quarter of 
the town he was set upon by de Craon, at the head 
of forty mounted ruffians. They flung themselves 
upon the Constable and his attendants, whose torches 
they extinguished ; but so unexpected was the attack 
that de Clisson at first took it for a practical joke on 
the part of the madcap Due d' Orleans, the King's 
brother. He was soon undeceived, as sword-cuts, 
which he parried as he could with his small and 
merely ceremonial sword, were rained upon him. At 
the same time the would-be assassin, in his certitude 



44 The France of Joan of Arc 

of revenge, cried out : *' It is I, thine enemy, Pierre de 
Craon, who kill thee ! " Struck at length upon the 
head, he fell from his horse, and, striking the un- 
fastened door of a baker's shop, where the baker was 
at work, fell with three parts of his length within the 
entry. 

The band of assassins, fearing to remain to see if 
de Clisson were actually dead or no, did not dismount, 
but galloped straight out of Paris, of which the gates 
had never been shut or guarded since the disarming of 
the citizens after the Flanders campaign. 

Charles VI., who had retired to rest, was instantly 
informed of the crime, and, without waiting a moment, 
repaired in his night-chemise and a cloak to the side 
of the stricken but not dead Constable, who returned 
to his senses as the King leaned over him. 

The rage of Charles was terrible, and he swore to 
his faithful Clisson that terrible indeed should be the 
vengeance that he would take. It was in vain for the 
King's uncles, who were furiously jealous of Clisson's 
influence, to represent that it would be useless to 
pursue Craon, saying that he had fled to Spain. The 
King would not listen. He believed, and probably 
rightly, that the murderers had fled to Brittany. It 
was at any rate, he declared, Jean de Montfort, Due 
de Bretagne, who was the real culprit, and upon him 
he would be avenged. He would brook no delay, 
and insisted upon his uncles assembling their vassals 
at all speed, to attend him upon an instant war on 
Brittany. In order to induce his unwilling uncle 
Berri to be as speedy as possible, he gave him back 
the Government of Languedoc of which he had been 
deprived. 



Wild Youth and Madness of Charles VI 45 

His impatience to start made the King ill, and 
he was seized with a fever, which could not, however, 
turn him from his purpose. He refused to keep still 
or take care of himself in any way, his brain being 
full of but the one idea — vengeance. He mounted 
his horse, and dragged his uncles and their vassals 
off with him to the town of Mans, but there they 
contrived to delay him for a week or two. Imagining 
himself better, Charles caused his standard to be 
unfurled, and continued his journey to the west. 

The weather of that August was terribly hot, and 
the King attired in black velvet, with a scarlet velvet 
cap. Pushing on ahead in his impatience, he gave 
way to the blackest of thoughts ; his mind was full 
of the ingratitude of his uncles, who had shown such 
unwillingness to help him that even now, after being 
rewarded in advance for their services, they lagged 
behind. He felt himself surrounded with nothing but 
traitors, and suddenly, as though to give words to 
his thoughts, a wild, gaunt figure sprang from the 
bushes and seized his horse's bridle, while crying 
wildly aloud : 

*' Stay, noble King! Go no farther! You are 
betrayed ! " 

With difficulty could the strange being be induced 
to relinquish his hold, but still he followed, crying in 
weird, tragic tones : 

'' Stay, noble King ! You are betrayed ! " 

At length, from the forest he was traversing, the 
King issued upon a sandy plain, where the heat of 
the noonday sun was intolerable. One of the King's 
pages, who was carrying his lance, fell asleep in the 
saddle. He fell forward, and, in doing so, struck with 



46 The France of Joan of Arc 

the lance-head the King's helmet, which was being 
carried by another page. 

Hearing the sound of steel upon steel, the recent 
words of the crazy hermit flashed upon the young 
King's already disordered brain. Imagining that the 
treason foretold was being enacted, he became suddenly 
a raving maniac. 

Drawing his sword, Charles screamed wildly : 

'* Down with the traitors ! They will betray me." 

Then, clapping his spurs to his horse's sides, he 
charged upon his brother, the Due d' Orleans. The 
Due managed to elude his onslaught by a miracle. 
Not so, however, four other unfortunate persons, 
whom the King cut down and killed, one after another. 
Continuing to pursue and strike with his sword at 
any person whom his eyes lighted upon, at length the 
unhappy young man became fatigued, when one of 
his Knights contrived to pinion him from behind. 

He was disarmed and laid upon the ground, when 
his eyes rolled horribly in his head. Every one, even 
the Ambassadors of the King of England, approached 
and gazed upon the maniac King, but he recognised 
no one. 

After some time, how long is uncertain, the King's 
senses returned to him, when he expressed the greatest 
sorrow for what he had done, and humbly confessed 
himself. 

The expedition into Brittany was discontinued by 
the Dues de Bourgogne and Berri, who even eventu- 
ally caused a pardon to be sent by the King to 
de Craon for his crime, on the grounds that he had 
made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Bourgogne's anger 
was kindled far more against those surrounding the 



Wild Youth and Madness of Charles VI 47 

King, who had allowed the King of France to be seen 
in his madness by the Ambassadors of his enemies, 
the English. For that reason he threw the Chamber- 
Iain, La Riviere, and others, into prison. 

Although Charles VI., in his first lucid moments, 
ordered that no harm should be done to them, he soon 
relapsed into lunacy. 

He ceased to be a maniac, but for the rest of his 
life the unfortunate monarch was subject to prolonged 
periods of imbecility, with lucid intervals which were 
usually of but short duration. 



I 



CHAPTER IV 

The King plays Cards — Queen Isabeau 
Unfaithful— The Popes 

1392 — 1400 

Charles being well for a time, his courtiers en- 
deavoured to keep him happy by leading him into 
giddy acts of folly, one of which was the direct cause 
of his relapse. 

Upon the occasion of the remarriage of a lady of 
the suite of Queen Isabeau, a certain noble named 
Hugues de Guisay suggested that the King and five 
of his companions should disguise themselves as 
satyrs, when, at a court ball, they could the more 
freely behave with all the frolicsome indecorum which 
in that day attended the marriages of widows. 

' The would-be satyrs were sewn up in close-fitting 
cloth, which was laid over with some sticky, resinous 
substance. Upon this, in order to give the woolly ap- 
pearance of a goat-skin, tow was stuck, the whole body 
and limbs being covered. With masks and goats'- 
horns, the satyrs were perfect. The ball was in full 
swing, and the satyrs enjoying themselves vastly, pur- 
suing the shrieking women ; the King, as it happened, 
being in the very act of roughly romping with his very 

48 



The King plays Cards 49 

young aunt by marriage, the daughter of the Comte 
de Foix who had married the Due de Berri. At that 
moment the Due d'Orleans and the Comte de Bar 
entered the ball-room. Thinking that it would add 
greatly to the hilarity of the evening, and make the 
ladies seream louder than ever, these two madeaps set 
fire to the tow with whieh five of the satyrs were 
eovered. The tow and the resinous matter to whieh 
it was attaehed flamed up fiereely, and, with howls of 
agony, the burning satyrs ran wildly round and round 
the great saloon, setting fire to the dresses of some of 
the ladies present. 

By the merest ehance, the one satyr whose woolly 
skin had not at first been ignited was the King, and, 
by her presence of mind, the young girl with whom 
he had been romping saved his life. To prevent the 
toreh from being applied to his goat-like hide, the 
child-Duchesse de Berri wrapped her robe entirely 
round him and held him closely to her. Nor during 
the half-hour that the fiery imps were rushing about 
the ball-room, scattering fragments of burning tow in 
all directions, did this brave young girl of the House 
of Foix ever relinquish her hold, even although in his 
excited struggles the King sought to free himself. 
At length the fiery skins of the satyrs burned them- 
selves out, and the five unfortunate young men, in- 
cluding Hugues de Guisay, were carried away to die 
in agony. Not a single spark had fallen upon the 
King, but when he was unsewn his madness had re- 
turned, although it was of a harmless nature. He 
declared that his name was not Charles, but George, 
that his arms were a lion transfixed by a sword, and 
that he had neither wife nor child. Whenever he 



so The France of Joan of Arc 

saw the fleurs-de-Iys of France, on walls or windows, 
he first danced in front of them and then broke them. 
Fortunately, however, Charles remained perfectly 
harmless, and, with the exception of his giddy wife, 
Isabeau, was peculiarly susceptible to female influence, 
notably that of Valentina, his sister-in-law. As the 
Queen refused to continue to share the King's couch, 
they gave him a beautiful young girl to replace her, a 
young merchant's daughter, who was largely remuner- 
ated for her complaisance. 

Her name was Odette de Champdivers, and she 
was the first mistress of a King of France whose name 
has been recorded in history. According to the 
detailed Latin chronicle of the Religieux du Saint- 
Denis, this young lady became known by the sobriquet 
of Parva Regina — the Little Queen. To the little 
Queen two large and handsome manors, those of 
Creteil and Bagnolet, were accorded by the King, 
who always treated her kindly. She became the 
mother of a daughter, known, so says the Monk of 
Saint-Denis, as the Domicella de Belleville, from a 
property which her father the King gave to her upon 
her early marriage. She was legitimised some years 
after her birth under the name of Marguerite de Valois. 

After the renewed fit of lunacy brought on by 
the above-mentioned tragic event, the result of the 
criminal folly of two young men, whenever the King 
came to himself, or partly to himself, he endeavoured 
to do some good in the country, and regarded with 
especial favour the Provost of the Merchants, by name 
Juvenal des Ursins, and also the citizens of Paris. 
By his good bourgeois he became much beloved in 
turn. Often when other officials came to see him 



The King plays Cards 51 

upon matters of business, Charles VI. would look at 
them in a startled manner and fail to recognise them. 
Juvenal, however, he not only always knew well, but 
was willing to work with, saying : '' Now, Juvenal, 
let us do some good work together." Thus, even if 
crazy, Charles became most popular. 

As the people of France continued to increase in 
their devotion to their crazy monarch, all kinds of 
strange methods were devised for his cure. Not the 
least of these was sorcery, which was firmly believed 
in by the people, and one of the most absurd instances 
of attempting to charm his madness away is recorded 
as having taken place in the neighbourhood of Dijon. 
To the Bailli of that place came two wizards, who 
declared that what was necessary was that twelve iron 
columns should be erected in the forest and surrounded 
by a circle of iron. Outside this circle were to be 
placed twelve iron chains. To each column a man, 
who should volunteer for the purpose, should be 
chained all night long. Then the dozen devotees 
would be visited by the devil, who would reveal the 
cause of the King's malady and give them instructions 
how it was to be remedied. 

All this farrago of nonsense was believed in, and 
eleven brave persons were found ready to run the risk 
of being visited by Satan while remaining helplessly 
chained to an iron column, without possibility of flight 
should Beelzebub prove perchance unfriendly and 
attack them with horns and hoofs, or possibly break 
their chains and carry them off bodily. As a twelfth 
volunteer was not forthcoming, the Bailli offered 
himself to complete the magic circle. 

The worthy Monk of Saint- Denis does not inform 



52 The France of Joan of Arc 

us what happened to the two wizards upon the 
morning following this fearful but ineffective incanta- 
tion. It certainly went very hardly with various other 
sorcerers, chiefly monks, who came to perform similar 
hanky-panky tricks in Paris. Upon their imposture 
becoming evident, they were broken upon the wheel, 
or burned alive, for the crime, not of witchcraft, but 
of not having proved to be bona fide good wizards. 

To amuse the King in his palace of Saint-Paul, 
hand-painted cards were given him to play with. 
Various games of cards were invented, and, as the 
King played, every one followed his example. It has 
been popularly supposed that this is the first instance 
on record of the use of playing-cards in Europe ; but 
an anonymous author, who wrote a poem, finished 
about sixty years earlier, mentions them as being used 
in his day. The poem was called *' Le Renard 
Contrefait," or the Disguised Fox, and the author 
stated that he began it in the year 1320 and finished 
it in 1341. 

There seems, from researches made by various 
French authors, to have been considerable doubt, 
even in early modern times, as to the real origin of 
playing-cards. Some ascribe them to ancient Ger- 
many, some to Spain or Provence, while M. Rdmusat 
declares the first French cards to have been copied 
from the Chinese. As those of Charles VI., so the 
cards used a little later by the Dukes of Milan, were 
hand-painted. Duke Philippe Marie Visconti paid as 
much as fifteen hundred pieces of gold for a pack of 
cards in the year 1430. Eleven years later, however, 
the card-painters of Venice began to complain that 
printed cards were being brought into the country. 




ISABEAU OF BAVARIA, WIFE OF CHARLES VI. 



53 



The King plays Cards 55 

To return to Charles VI. While playing with his 
pack of cards, he himself greatly resembled the king 
of one of the suits, in that while nominally at the top 
he was more often at the bottom. At times he still 
reigned by his own authority, but far more often he 
merely signed the Royal decrees while others reigned 
in his place and caused him to affix his signature as 
they dictated. 

Such, for instance, was the case when, in the 
concluding years of the fourteenth century, the weight 
of the University of Paris was sufficient to compel 
Charles VI. to sign a decree suspending the authority 
of the Avignon Pope, Benedict XIII., in France. 
Further, this crazy young King, who had enjoyed 
himself so vastly with Clement VII. at Avignon, was 
compelled to send the French Marechal de Boucicaut 
to Avignon to arrest the successor of his friend 
Clement, who had originally been the Bishop of 
Cambray, and who died in the year 1394. 

Peter de Luna, who reigned in his place as 
Benedict XIII., was one of those tough old church- 
men who believed neither in yielding to the secular 
power, as represented by an army, nor to his rival, 
the Roman Pope Boniface IX. When Boucicaut s 
army came to attack him, the brave old Benedict 
put on his armour as might any other captain of the 
age, and made a splendid defence of his castle of 
Avignon. During the years 1398 and 1399 he re- 
sisted a siege. When short of fuel wherewith to cook 
his food, the Pope gradually pulled his castle to 
pieces, burning the joists and rafters. But he still 
resisted, and eventually remained victorious. 

At the same epoch the Roman Pope, whom the 
4 



S^ The France of Joan of Arc 

French University supported, was also in arms against 
rebellious Romans. Such was the condition of the 
heads of the Church during the times of the Great 
Schism! Oddly enough, at this very time, 1398, 
Charles VI., the crazy king of France, was receiving 
in Paris a visit from the Emperor of Germany, 
Wenzel IV. of Bohemia, the Supreme Ruler of the 
Holy Roman Empire. 

As this successor to the sceptre of Charlemagne 
was continually drunk, it is scarcely matter for surprise 
that but little elucidation of the matter which he had 
come to discuss resulted from the interviews between 
the two Monarchs. 

That matter was one no less weighty than the 
Schism of the Church. Needless to say, the very 
Christian King and the inebriated Emperor were not 
successful in attaining a settlement of the complicated 
affairs of the Papacy. 



CHAPTER V 

The Quarrel of Orleans and Burgundy 

1400 — 1407 

Meanwhile, about the year 1400 was commencing 
in France another violent disturbance, the direct out- 
come of the insanity of Charles VI., one which was to 
turn the country topsy-turvy for the space of a 
generation at least. 

This was the quarrel, born of jealousy, of Louis 
d' Orleans, the King's brother, first with his uncle 
Philippe le Hardi (Philip the Bold), then with his 
cousin, Jean Sans Peur (John the Fearless). It was 
the great struggle known as that of the Armagnacs 
and the Burgundians, although when it commenced 
that great Gascon noble, the Comte d'Armagnac, was, 
if anything, the enemy rather than the friend of the 
Due d'0rl6ans. 

This young Louis de France was a man of pleasure, 
devoid of personal cruelty, but without any serious 
object in life. He was handsome, open, and agree- 
able, something of a poet, much beloved of women — 
a sinner, yet the friend of the Church. To the people 
in his youthful days he was somewhat of a tyrant ; 
nevertheless, upon his early and violent death at the 
age of thirty-six, he was greatly mourned by the people 

57 



58 The France of Joan of Arc 

whom he had oppressed. He took, in the sunny 
charm of his manner, much after his mother, Jeanne 
de Bourbon, she whom her husband Charles V. always 
had spoken of as the " Sun of his Realm." 

That the young Due d'Orleans was a man of wit 
and considerable learning there is no doubt, from the 
fact that he was not in the least disconcerted before 
the doctors of the various faculties of the University, 
and took pleasure in interrupting their weighty and 
tiresome dialogues with his lively sallies. The 
University, however, forgave him for a time, as he 
was generous to the students and priests belonging 
to its body. Most charitable also was Louis to the 
poor. 

Such was the Due d' Orleans in himself, but much 
of his culture and winning ways he owed to the 
charming ladies whom he frequented, including his 
talented and brilliant wife, Valentina Visconti. All 
women adored Louis, but Louis was unfortunately 
utterly deficient in that one quality requisite to make 
woman's adoration permanent — namely fidelity. 
Another woman who influenced Louis, one whose 
mother had also been an Italian Visconti, was the 
Queen. 

After the young Queen Isabeau had separated 
herself from her husband upon his becoming insane, 
she nevertheless continued to present him regularly 
with children, until she had brought into the world 
no less than six sons and five daughters. Who were 
the lovers who were the fathers of all these supposedly 
legitimate scions of the Valois line is unknown, but 
there appears to be little doubt that one of those most 
beloved of this half Italian, half Bavarian Princess 



The Quarrel of Orkans and Burgundy 59 

was her brother-in-law, Louis d'Orleans. He was 
probably the father of several of her children, including 
Catherine, who became first the wife of Henry V. of 
England, and subsequently of Owen Tudor. 

That Louis d'Orleans was the father of Isabeau' s , 
fifth son Charles (the third she had of that name), 
who came to the throne as Charles VH., was believed 
even by her husband. When Charles VL disinherited 
this son, describing him in his document of banish- 
ment as the ** soi-disant Dauphin Charles," Queen 
Isabeau herself raised no objection, and made no 
pretensions as to his legitimacy. 

The possessions of the Due d'Orleans were large. 
He obtained from his brother in succession the 
appanages of Orleans, Perigord, and Angoumois. 
Then he succeeded in adding to these the four 
Counties of Valois, Blois, Beaumont, and Dreux. He 
had, in addition, a position on the Italian side of the 
Alps, in the shape of Asti, brought to him by his wife. 

These various territories were, however, scattered 
about, and in no way to be compared to the almost 
empire which had been amassed by his uncle Philippe 
le Hardi, Due de Bourgogne. 

When Philippe had received the appanage of 
Burgundy from his brother, Charles le Sage, that King 
had also given French Flanders, Lille, and Douai 
to the father of Marguerite, the heiress of Flanders, 
as a bait, in order that his brother might be granted 
the hand of that great heiress. 

It had been tacitly understood between Charles V. 
and his brother that French Flanders should revert 
to France, but once Philippe had become Comte de 
Flandre he took care to treat that province as being 



6o The France of Joan of Arc 

absolutely his own. With his wife he obtained on 
the north-east of France the Counties of Artois, 
Rethel, Nevers, and Franche Comt6, in addition to 
Belgian Flanders. With all of the rich commercial 
counties of Flanders, thus added to Burgundy, Philippe 
might have been content. But no, he obtained a 
footing in the Empire by marrying his son and 
daughter into Holland, which belonged to the Bavarian 
House, and which marriages seemed likely to bring 
both Hainaut and Holland to Burgundy. As the 
Emperor Wenzel IV. had also married the Princess 
Sophia of Bavaria his connection with Burgundy was 
close, and by this connection the power of Philippe 
augmented. He had further, in the year 1 390, rounded 
off his Duchy and County of Burgundy by the pur- 
chase of the County of Charolais. To the south of 
Paris he had acquired likewise Etampes from his 
brother Berri. A fact that made Philippe's influence 
still more redoubtable was that his relations were most 
friendly with both his cousins Jean IV. (de Mont- 
fort), Due de Bretagne, and the Due's wife Jeanne 
de Navarre, the daughter of Charles le Mauvais, 
King of Navarre, the enemy of the ruling line in 
France. When the Due de Bretagne died in 1399 
Philippe le Hardi not only obtained the guardianship 
of his young successor Due Jean V., but became also 
practical Regent of the Duchy of Brittany. 

The Due d'Orl^ans felt the difference in his 
position to that of his uncle, all the more from the 
reason that until nearly the time that his brother 
Charles VI. became insane the Due de Bourgogne 
had continually helped himself to large sums drawn 
from France. After the insanity of Charles, and the 



The Quarrel of Orleans and Burgundy 6i 

fall of the Government of the Marmousets, his uncle 
had likewise extracted considerable so-called gifts from 
the mad King, and at the same time done all in his 
power to prevent d'Orleans from taking that share 
in the Government which, as the King's brother, was 
rightly his due. Louis considered, and perhaps with 
reason, that the position of Regent belonged to him 
alone, and that, with all his immense possessions, his 
uncle might well cease to interfere in the affairs of 
the kingdom. 

A crisis in the state of bad feeling between uncle 
and nephew occurred when Henry, Earl of Derby, 
the son of John of Gaunt, crossed over to England 
in 1399, and, after dispossessing his cousin Richard II. 
of the Crown, himself assumed it as Henry IV. The 
Due d'Orleans' very young niece Isabelle, daughter 
of Charles VI., was the second wife of Richard, and 
she was roughly sent back to France by the usurper 
of the English throne. Thereupon, although d'Or- 
leans and Henry IV. had formerly been intimate 
friends, and had even sworn brothership in arms, 
Louis d'Orleans sent him a challenge to fight with 
a hundred Knights a side. 

At this same time, although Philippe le Hardi 
made a show of preventing Henry's passage to 
England from Brittany, he and his Breton relations 
were really encouraging him. Likewise, although, 
as a good Frenchman, he should have joined whole- 
heartedly in the French war against Henry IV., 
which he feigned to do, Philippe as a good Fleming 
actually renewed the commercial treaties of Flanders 
with England. 

Of this transaction the Due d'Orldans could but 



62 The France of Joan of Arc 

be aware, and his bitterness was duly increased 
against his uncle. The cup was not, however, yet 
full. Louis d'Orl^ans knew that upon his passage 
through Brittany the newly widowed Duchesse, Jeanne 
de Navarre, had fallen in love with Henry IV. ; was 
aware also that the Due de Bourgogne was actually 
secretly encouraging this love-match, which soon took 
place, with a daughter of the bitter enemy of the 
House of Valois. It seemed therefore to d'Orleans 
as if, in every way, his uncle Philippe was acting 
against the interests not only of the ruling French 
line, but of France herself. 

His challenge to his old brother-in-arms, now 
become the King of England, was not only one to 
avenge the death of Richard II., which had taken place 
mysteriously in prison, but couched in knightly style 
so as to defend the honour of widows and virgins. 
Louis accused Henry IV. that in the manner in which 
he had treated the youthful Queen Isabelle de France 
he had shown himself wanting in all **qu'un homme 
noble devait aux dames veuves et pucelles." 

Henry sent an insulting and at the same time 
hypocritical reply to the Due d'Orleans. First he 
said, to this son and brother of a King, that he, 
an usurper sprung from a younger branch, declined 
to fight with those of less rank than himself. Then 
he said, as further excuse for not fighting, *' that 
which a Prince does he does it for the honour of 
God and all Christianity, or for his Kingdom, but 
not for his own vainglory." 

He gave, moreover, a sly and sarcastic rub to 
Louis in reply to his remark about the protection 
of widows ^nd virgins : *' Might it please God that 



The Quarrel of Orleans and Burgundy 63 

you yourself had never used any rigour, cruelty, or 
villainy with respect to any lady or demoiselle, we 
should think that you would then be a good deal 
more worthy." 

With these matters concerning England and 
Brittany may be said to have commenced the quarrel 
between Orleans and Burgundy, which for so many 
years tore France to pieces from end to end. The 
first actual move in the game was made by Louis 
d' Orleans, who purchased the small State of Luxem- 
bourg, and established himself there in the midst of 
his uncle's Burgundian dominions. From this point 
of vantage he stirred up that notable freebooter, the 
Due de Gueldre, the old enemy of his uncle, whose 
dominions he paid him to invade and pillage. 

With Gueldre and other Princes in his train, with 
Clisson and some friendly Bretons, also some Scotch 
and some Welsh troops whom he procured from the 
garrisons of Guyenne, Louis now came to Paris. 
Philippe le Bon did the same, his army being furnished 
in a great measure by the Bishop of Liege and other 
Flemish vassals. 

The Princes did not fight each other, however, but 
went through the farce of a reconciliation. Actual 
warfare with arms was not necessary for the Due de 
Bourgogne to ruin his nephew in the estimation of the 
Parisians, for he was able to do him far more injury in 
a hundred underhand ways with his tongue. Philippe 
accused his nephew of having made immoral attempts 
upon the virtue of the wife of his son (Jean Sans 
Peur), whose picture in a state of nudity he was said 
to have in his picture-gallery. Nothing was ever 
proved as to the culpability of Marguerite de Hollande 



64 The France of Joan of Arc 

in this matter, but the Flemish historian Meyer states 
that, even in the Hfetime of his father, Jean Sans Peur 
wished to kill his cousin d'Orleans from motives of 
jealousy. 

Another accusation that was frequently made and 
circulated among the people was that the Due d'Orleans 
was the sole cause of all the taxation, and that it was 
unnecessary. Even although it was well known that 
the taxation was simply required to carry on the war 
with England, Philippe le Hardi advised the people, 
the University, and the Church, to refuse either to pay 
taxes or subscribe to a loan for this purpose. No 
advice could have been more popular, and, naturally, 
while the Due de Bourgogne contrived to establish 
himself in the public favour, his nephew became the 
object of universal execration. 

Accordingly, after, with such money as he could 
procure, carrying on a war for a time against England, 
both by sea, with the aid of the Bretons, and in 
Guyenne, in which place he gained some successes, 
chiefly through the Constable d'Albret and the Comte 
dArmagnac, Orleans retired from Paris. He went off 
with the Queen to Melun, taking a force with him. 
His uncle remained supreme in Paris as head of the 
King's Council, but when he called upon the Parisians 
to follow him to attack his nephew, they refused. 

In the year 1404, when Philippe le Hardi was at 
the height of his grandeur and power, he died. He 
was succeeded by his son Jean, known as " Sans 
Peur," although he did but little to deserve such a 
glorious surname. He succeeded to all his father's 
power and possessions at a moment when the affairs of 
his cousin Louis were at a pretty low ebb. His 



The Quarrel of Orleans and Burgundy 65 

patriotic efforts to fight for his country having resulted, 
through his uncle's machinations, but in his being 
called one who grabbed money merely for his own 
purposes, Louis d'Orleans had indeed latterly behaved 
in a manner which seemed to justify all the ill that was 
said of him. Not being able to procure money except 
by violent measures, when Louis found that he could 
not obtain sufficient wherewith to carry on the war he 
determined to expend all that he obtained for his own 
pleasures. He was credited with supplying his sister- 
in-law, the lively Isabeau, with immense sums, which 
the Queen was supposed to send out of the country to 
place in Germany. The Burgundian party gained at 
this period immensely, owing to the spiteful sermon 
preached at the Due and the Queen by a monk, one 
who had dedicated a book to Louis but been inade- 
quately rewarded for his flattery. 

Both were present when the Augustine monk 
attacked the prodigality of the Court, new customs, 
dancing, the modes of the day, long fringes and huge 
sleeves. He told the Queen, from the pulpit, that her 
abode was nothing but the domicile of Venus ! 

Such a success was this sermon for the Burgundian 
party that they ran to the King to tell him of it. 
Charles VL thereupon went himself to hear the 
Augustine preach. Then the monk attacked the Due 
d'Orleans violently to his semi-imbecile brother, whom 
he declared to be himself attired with the blood and 
the tears of the people. 

Nevertheless, d'Orleans was soon master again for 
a time, and the King gave him Normandy. And then 
came his cousin, Jean Sans Peur, with a large army to 
Paris, on pretence of doing homage for Burgundy, and 



66 The France of Joan of Arc 

managed to seize the eldest surviving Dauphin, aged 
nine, whom the Queen and the Due had just sent for 
to Melun, and while he was on his way to join them. 

With this child as nominal head of the Council, the 
Due Jean Sans Peur became for the time triumphant, 
but^ while Orleans openly demanded from his cousin 
tjiat he should join him in taking a personal part in 
the war against England, public opinion loudly cried 
out for a reconciliation. The University of Paris, 
which at this time made and unmade Popes and bullied 
Kings, thought to bully Louis into submission. Its 
most learned Doctors proceeded to Melun, to demand 
of the Due to send the Queen back to Paris, not to 
assemble troops, and to agree to the principle that what 
the Due de Bourgogne had done he had well done. 
Louis merely snapped his fingers at the Doctors. He 
answered their long diatribes syllogism for syllogism, 
and with a great deal of wit reduced their lengthy 
dialectics to nothing. In his terminating remarks he 
crushed them with his sarcasm. 

"Does not the University know, the King being 
ill and the Dauphin a minor, that it is to the King's 
brother that falls the duty of ruling the kingdom ? 
But how should it know? The University is not 
French ; it is a mixture of men of every nation— 
these foreigners have nothing to do with our affairs. 
Doctors, return to your schools ! Every man to his 
trade. You would not, I suppose, call in men-at-arms 
to decide upon questions of faith ? Who has charged 
you to negotiate a peace between me and my cousin 
of Burgundy ? There is neither hatred nor discord 
between us." 

Shortly after this, the cousins met and shook 



The Quarrel of Orleans and Burgundy 67 

hands, and the old Due de Berri and all the Council 
coming over to his side, the Due d'Orleans was 
once more at the top of the tree. Louis then persuaded 
Jean Sans Peur to attack the English in Calais, while 
he marched off himself to carry the war into Guyenne. 
Both the Princes had their pains for nothing. Bour- 
gogne failed signally, while d'Orleans was unsuccessful 
in an attempt to take Bordeaux. 

After his return from his wearying winter campaign, 
in which he had suffered great hardships, Louis found 
the University and the people dead against him, and 
he likewise received a severe blow in the death of the 
bold Breton, Clisson. The Due and the Queen en- 
deavoured vainly to recover their popularity by abolish- 
ing an infamous law by which the Princes and Royal 
personages generally could help themselves to anything 
they chose belonging to the lower orders. Unfortu- 
nately, both d'Orleans and the Queen had already 
made far too frequent use of this law of *' Prise" for 
the people to show them much gratitude for its being 
rescinded thus late in the day. 

The Queen, moreover, was enceinte once more, 
although still living apart from her husband. The 
child, a son, was born and died in a few days after birth, 
when Isabeau gave vent to open and unrestrained 
grief for an infant whom all the world declared to be 
the son of the beloved Louis d'Orleans. This event 
occurred in the month of November 1407. 

At this time this young Prince, being unwell, turned 
to religion, and retired for a time to a monastery, 
where he gave evidences of the greatest devotion. 
To his surprise he received a visit from his cousin, 
Jean Sans Peur, Due de Bourgogne. The matter 



68 The France of Joan of Arc 

which he came about had to do with his young brother- 
in-law, whom, without being ordained, Jean Sans Peur 
had made the Bishop of Li^ge. 

The Liegeois had hunted out the twenty-year-old 
Bishop and elected another from Luxembourg, one 
recommended by the Due d' Orleans. Jean was greatly 
perturbed ; he feared that his cousin's influence in 
Luxembourg would cause continual uprisings against 
his authority in Flanders. 

The old Due de Berri came to see if he could 
establish a real reconciliation between his nephews, 
and to this Louis d' Orleans willingly agreed. He 
confessed, went to Mass with his cousin, and together 
they took the Holy Communion. The evening ended 
by a dinner of reconciliation, given by Berri. After 
dinner the two cousins embraced with fraternal affec- 
tion (November 22, 1407). 

The next night, as the Due d'Orleans was visiting 
the Queen in the palace called the Hotel Barbette, he 
received a message that the King wanted to see him. 
Accompanied by two pages, he came forth, gaily 
humming a tune. Scarcely was he outside than he 
was brutally attacked by his cousin Jean and several 
other masked villains, who were hiding in a house 
which for a week past had been hired merely for the 
purpose of assassination. 

The unfortunate Louis was literally chopped into 
little pieces with axes and swords, and one of the 
young pages was also killed while trying bravely to 
defend his master. 

Such was the result of the great reconciliation, 
and of the peace of mind which followed the Holy 
Communion (November 23, 1407). 



CHAPTER VI 

The Comte d'Armagnac on the Scene 

1408— 1 41 3 

The sly allusion of Henry IV. to the violent mode 
of behaviour of Louis d'Orleans towards ladies and 
maidens had not been without justification. Ever 
drawn irresistibly by the attraction of forbidden fruit, 
he had violently torn from her husband, the Sire de 
Canny, a beautiful young lady. By the Dame de 
Canny he became the father of Jean, Comte de Dunois, 
the celebrated Bastard of Orleans, who always boasted 
that this latter cognomen was one that he was proud 
to bear. 

Upon the brutal murder of Louis by his cousin, 
all the world mourned the loss of him whom they had 
condemned while living. Even the murderer, who 
soon openly admitted his crime, sobbed bitterly while 
acting as one of the pall-bearers at his cousin's funeral. 
Perchance his conscience reproached him ! By none 
was the Due d'Orleans more lamented than by his 
neglected wife. She showed her deep affection to 
her lost husband in the case of the young Dunois. 
This youth she took into her own household and 
educated as her son. Frequently, so states Juvenal 
des Ursins, she would press him to her bosom, while 

69 



70 The France of Joan of Arc 

exclaiming, ** Ah ! thou hast been stolen from me, but 
thou it is who shalt avenge thy father ! " 

Upon the loth of the December after this foul 
and traitorous assassination, the widowed Valentina, 
Duchesse d'Orleans, went in state to the Hotel Saint- 
Paul to demand vengeance of the King. She took 
with her the fifteen-year-old widow of Richard II. of 
England, Isabelle de France, who was now betrothed 
to the young Due d'Orleans, and was accompanied 
also by two of her children. She was preceded by 
the King of Sicily (Anjou), the Due de Berri, the 
Due de Bourbon, and the young Comte de Clermont, 
now Constable of France. 

Her litter, or carriage, was draped with black and 
drawn by four white horses. In a tragic scene, with 
her eyes full of tears, Valentina threw herself at the 
King's feet and demanded justice. Some words in the 
discourse pronounced on her behalf before the King 
seemed prophetic for France. '* Weep, Princes and 
nobles ! for the road has been cleared to cause your 
death secretly by treason ! Weep, men, women, old 
men and young people ! The sweetness of peace and 
tranquillity has been reft from you, since the path has 
been shown to you to murder and carry the sword 
against the Princes. Thus behold you yourselves 
in war, in misery, on the path of destruction ! " 

The poor King Charles VI. himself wept, and 
promised vengeance for his brother ; but, alas ! Valentina 
was never to see that vengeance carried out, for shortly 
afterwards, despite the repeated efforts of his uncles 
to prevent him, the murderer, Jean Sans Peur, re- 
turned to Paris at the head of his vassals. The fickle 
people, thinking that he was going to suppress the 




n- 



JEAN SANS PEUR, DUG DE BOURGOGNE. 



71 



The Comte d'Armagnac on the Scene 73 

taxes, cried, '' Noel to the good Due !" The Princes, 
even the shameless Queen Isabeau, floating with the 
tide, welcomed him also. Nevertheless, the new Due 
de Bourgogne, far from being ''fearless," trembled 
with fear, and, although his hotel was surrounded with 
troops, he built himself a strong room of masonry 
within it, wherein he dwelt, even then not feeling 
himself secure. 

His efforts were at once devoted to obtaining from 
the Doctors of the University the public justification 
of his crime. Owing to its hatred of the Avignon 
Pope, Benedict XIII., whom Louis d'Orleans had 
strongly supported, this white-washing the University 
was inclined to give. The very learned monk Jean 
Petit gave an immense discourse, under many absurd 
heads and sub-heads, to prove, with reason and sub- 
reason drawn from philosophy and Holy Writ, that 
the assassination was justified. He said that, as 
Judith had slain Holophernes, so had the Due de 
Bourgogne slain for God, since the Due d'Orleans 
was the enemy of God, the enemy of the people of 
God, the friend of the Devil. Further, that Bour- 
gogne had acted as a good citizen, since the Due 
d'Orleans was a tyrant, and a tyrant should be killed. 

In this manner, even after his death, was the 
memory of the Due d'Orleans publicly outraged. 
The pssassin likewise obtained, to salve his conscience, 
letters of remission from the foolish King — the 
murdered man's brother. These also were the work 
of the University; but shortly after the University 
received a blow, by the arrival of an Aragonese 
gentleman bearing Bulls of excommunication of the 
King and his adherents from Pope Benedict. 
5 



74 The France of Joan of Arc 

We need not go here into the fury and commotion 
which arose among the Universitarians. A new order 
was given to the Mar^chal de Boucicaut to arrest 
Benedict, and many of his partisans, including the 
Abbot of Saint-Denis and the Dean of Saint-Germain- 
I'Auxerrois, were thrown into prison. Matters were 
by no means improved when, on May 25, 1408, 
a Royal Edict was read out to the people declaring 
that henceforth obedience should be given neither to 
the Pope of Avignon nor the Pope of Rome, and 
that the Holy Chair was vacant. Both the Popes, 
Benedict and Gregory XII., had in June 1409 been 
deposed by the Council of Pisa, and both were now in 
flight. While the French priests, assembled in 
council in the Sainte Chapelle, declared their inten- 
tion of ruling themselves, they cruelly ill-treated and 
pilloried such Papal messengers as ventured to come 
to Paris from Benedict, who boldly held out in Aragon 
for fifteen years longer. During this troubled time 
the Queen and all the Princes fled from Paris, leaving 
there only Jean Sans Peur, with the King in his 
hands. 

The party of Benedict and Orleans was, however, 
stirring up trouble for Jean in Lidge, whence John of 
Bavaria, his cousin, whom he had again made Bishop, 
was expelled. Forty thousand Li^geois rose in arms. 
Bourgogne had to leave Paris to face them, and on 
September 23, 1407, he defeated them at Hasbain. 
In the early part of the battle his mounted and well- 
armed men-at-arms had surrounded some thousands of 
the citizens on foot. These had laid down their arms 
and surrendered, when the Due de Bourgogne beheld 
ten thousand reinforcements from another Belgian 



The Comte d'Armagnac on the Scene 75 

town coming to join the insurgents. Instantly he 
gave the order to all his men-at-arms to charge upon 
and slaughter the unarmed prisoners, who were 
butchered to a man. 

It was after this battle of Hasbain, in which the 
Due de Bourgogne claimed to have put to death 
twenty-five thousand of the supporters of Pope 
Benedict and the Organist party, that the name was 
given to him of ** Jean Sans Peur." As a French 
writer says, he might just as well have been named 
Jean ** Sans Piti^," and that if he was indeed Sans 
Peur, it was Sans Peur de Dieu — without fear of God. 

His previous experience of war had not been so 
fortunate, although from it he may well have learned 
to be merciless, and to appreciate the convenience of 
slaughtering his prisoners in cold blood, lest they 
should again perchance take up arms against him. 
As a quite young man, when Due de Nevers, he had 
been placed by his father at the head of a French 
army sent to help the King of Bohemia against the 
Turks, and had suffered a terrible defeat at Nicopolis. 
The Turkish Sultan Bajazet had, after the battle, 
caused the whole of the French army, with exception 
of Nevers and twenty-five other great Seigneurs, to 
be knocked on the head with maces. Nevers and his 
companions had only been released after the payment 
of immense ransoms, that of Jean himself being paid 
from the Royal Treasury of France. 

Upon his return to Paris after his success over his 
Flemish subjects, Jean found that the Queen and 
Princes, now all of the Orleans party, had taken ad- 
vantage of his absence to make off with the King to 
Chartres. Without the puppet King in his hands. 



7 6 The France of Joan of Arc 

even with Paris and the University behind him, 
Bourgogne felt himself greatly weakened. He de- 
termined therefore to listen to proposals for a recon- 
ciliation brought to him by the Grand Master Montaigu, 
who had been one of the Marmousets. 

A most dishonourable treaty, one humiliating to 
both the contracting parties, was entered into. By its 
terms the second young son of the murdered Louis 
d'Orleans was to marry a daughter of Jean the 
murderer. She was to have a dowry of a hundred 
and fifty golden crowns. At the same time the Due 
de Bourgogne was publicly to own his culpability in 
the Church of Notre-Dame of Chartres, and there to 
humbly beg the forgiveness of the King and the 
children of the Prince whom he had murdered. This 
ceremony was duly carried out, Bourgogne being 
compelled to sue to the children of Orleans '' to banish 
from their hearts all hatred and vengeance, and to be 
good friends with him." 

After some of the Princes had gone through the 
farce of interceding with the King for the Due, the 
pardon, which was merely one of the lips, was accorded 
to him by the children of the cousin whom he had so 
basely slaughtered in cold blood. 

After this scene the two parties only hated each 
other worse than ever, and it was determined to make 
a scapegoat of the unfortunate Montaigu, who had 
drawn up the treaty. He was guilty of one crime in 
the eyes of all — that of being very rich. At a grand 
feast which Montaigu gave to celebrate the reconcilia- 
tion, both parties viewed with greedy eyes the masses 
of gold and silver under which his tables groaned. 
That settled the matter ; therefore, although this man 



The Comte d^Armagnac on the Scene 77 

of humble birth had connected himself by marriage 
with some of the greatest nobles in France, his death 
was decided upon. Not even his brother, the Bishop 
of Paris, could save him. 

Montaigu was accused by Jean Sans Peur of 
having been the cause of the King's illness. When 
subjected to terrible tortures, he confessed his crime — 
poor man ! A mere rag of a human being, he was 
dragged to the place of execution, where, before his 
head was cut off, he withdrew his avowal. He 
solemnly declared that neither he nor the late Due 
d'Orleans had in any way been guilty towards the 
King or the kingdom, saving in that they had perhaps 
spent too much of the King's money. 

All wept for poor Montaigu, who was greatly 
beloved ; but all feared the terrible man who could 
deal three such blows as the murder of Louis d'Orleans, 
the massacre of the Li^geois, and the torture and 
execution of the guiltless Grand Master. 

The Due de Bourgogne took advantage of the 
fear which he inspired to impose his friendship in 
various directions. He gained his cousin, the young 
Louis d'Anjou (King of Sicily), by giving him one of 
his daughters with a large dowry. He won over King 
Charles HL of Navarre to oppose his neighbour on 
the Spanish border, that great Orleanist partisan the 
Comte Bernard VH. d'Armagnac, and he brought 
over Queen Isabeau to his side by promising to her 
brother Louis of Bavaria a daughter of his friend the 
King of Navarre. These useful alliances he succeeded 
in effecting in the year 1409. 

To gain the good opinion of the people of France, 
Jean now made another attempt to besiege Calais. 



78 The France of Joan of Arc 

His friends In Flanders, and enemies in France, 
the English, made short work of the Due, however, 
before Calais, where they burned up with Greek fire 
the wooden town which he had built round the city, 
destroyed also all his stores, his battering-rams, and 
his artillery. Returning to Paris, he took all the 
treasuries and finances into his own hands, making of 
the Comte de Saint-Pol his Receiver-General. Jean 
further continued his tyranny by the use that he made 
of a violent man, Dessessarts, the Provost of the 
Merchants, and through this greedy and, savage villain 
he completely dominated Paris. 

It is now time that we took into consideration the 
great party which, with the child-Due Charles d'Or- 
leans as its nominal leader, was, fi^om hatred of the 
Due de Bourgogne and his evil ways, constantly 
increasing throughout France. The name given to 
this party was the Armagnaes, and its head at this 
time was that great Gascon noble, almost Prince, the 
Comte Bernard dArmagnac. 

To explain the excessive hatred which existed 
between not only the Armagnaes and the Burgundians, 
but also between the Armagnaes and the inhabitants 
of the north of France generally, it must be understood 
that In the France of that day different languages 
were used in the northern and southern parts of the 
country. 

In the northern provinces was employed the langue 
(Toily an ancient Romance dialect, while in the south 
another old Romance dialect, the langue d'oc, was 
universally spoken. 

The provinces of the north accordingly looked 
upon those of the south, whose language they did 



The Comte d^Armagnac on the Scene 79 

not understand, as strangers, and hated them worse 
than if they had been real foreigners. To the Norman 
or the Picard, the Gascon or the Provencal was 
nothing but an uncouth savage. The Bretons, then 
as now, also spoke a different tongue. When it is 
remembered that the armies employed in France at 
that date, largely formed from the Free Companies, 
often contained many English, Flemish, and Germans, 
and even Italians from Lombardy, some idea can 
be given of the babel of tongues which was often 
to be heard on the same battle-field. 

The marvel is that any orders were ever under- 
stood. One fact is certain : that, from the want of 
comprehension between the conqueror and the van- 
quished, even when both were of Gallic race, little 
pity was often shown to those crying for mercy. 

The country to the south of Bordeaux and Tou- 
louse was that of the allied families of Armagnac 
and F^zenzac. 

Pillagers of the Church from generation to genera- 
tion, they were continually excommunicated, but, 
like the famous Jackdaw of Rhelms, never seemed 
one penny the worse for the Papal ban. In the earlier 
times these great nobles were constantly to be found 
in arms against the King, but, having received several 
severe lessons, they came to the conclusion that their 
interests lay more in keeping in with the Monarchy 
than in opposing it. 

The Kings, on their side, thought it good policy 
to attach these freebooting chieftains to their standard 
by giving them in marriage Princesses of the Royal 
blood, and a daughter of Armagnac had been, further, 
united to a scion of the family of Orleans. The great 



8o The France of Joan of Arc 

family of Albret fought with them, and, wearing the 
white cross as their emblem, these furious Gascons were 
ever in arms. They were the first formed infantry 
soldiers in France, and greatly feared for their ferocity. 
Wherever they passed they impressed the peasants 
to assume the white cross with them. Woe to him 
who refused to follow the Armagnac when called upon ! 
His foot was cut off, or his arm severed at the wrist. 

These hardy Pyrenean warriors received immense 
rewards from the Kings of France, who early learned 
to appreciate the valour of this Gascon infantry. 
Nevertheless, the Comtes d' Armagnac were by no 
means always successful in their guerilla warfare, and 
twice were Comtes dArmagnac defeated and taken 
prisoners in Italy. At the battle of Agincourt also, 
when commanded by dAlbret, then Constable of 
France, their warlike bands suffered terribly. 

Even when they had nominally become the dutiful 
servants of the King of France, these wild Comtes 
knew neither religion nor law ; they remained noted 
for their crimes, which went unpunished. In order 
to preserve her dowry, one of them married his sister- 
in-law, while another one espoused his own sister, 
having forged a Papal dispensation for the purpose. 

Of all the Comtes d' Armagnac, none was perhaps 
more violent and cruel than the Comte Bernard VI L, 
who, after the murder of the Due d'Orl^ans, openly 
declared himself his avenger. Not originally on 
good terms with the Due, he yet had at one time 
served him in the south, and even retaken sixty 
small places from the English. 

When, however, Louis d'Orl^ans went himself 
upon his winter expedition into Guyenne, dArmagnac, 



The Comte d'Armagnac on the Scene 8i 

who fought only for his own hand, and at such seasons 
when pillage was easy to get, flatly refused to back 
up the brother of Charles VI. Among the cruelties 
for which this Comte Bernard was renowned, was 
his barbarous treatment of his near kinsman, the 
Vicomte de Fezenzaguet. 

After robbing this unfortunate Seigneur of his 
possessions, he put out his eyes, and those of his sons, 
then threw them all together to drown in a cistern. 

The Gascons of Armagnac looked forward to a 
fine time of it in pillaging the towns of the hated north 
of France, and this was, doubtless, the chief reason 
for their assumption of the cause of Orleans against 
the Due de Bourgogne. Moreover, the churches 
were rich in the north, and these sacrilegious adven- 
turers, who scrupled but little in pillaging the shrines 
of the saints of the langue d'oc, considered that there 
would be positive merit in robbing the shrines of 
those of the langue d'oil. 

The chalices would make fine drinking-cups, while 
the gorgeous priestly robes would come in handy to 
repair their tattered garments. 

The Comte dArmagnac marched up to the north 
and proceeded to establish himself and his followers in 
the rich Abbey of Saint-Denis and the surrounding 
small towns near Paris. In this Abbey, so the worthy 
monk informs us, the Abbot and brethren were inclined 
to the cause of Orleans. The Abbot, nevertheless, 
caused all the riches of the Abbey to be carried away 
and hidden. He had, however, in his charge, all of 
the Queen's gold and silver vessels. To his horror 
the Comte Bernard called him one fine morning and 
said : ** The money that should have been sent to us 



82 The France of Joan of Arc 

to pay the troops has not arrived. Now I am sure that 
the Queen will only be too pleased to lend us what she 
has left here in your care ; so be good enough to pro- 
duce it. I will give you a receipt." By force, 
hammer in hand, the Comte broke open the locked 
chests of treasure. Thereupon the Abbot instantly 
sent away from the monastery all those who knew 
where their own treasure was concealed, lest, by 
torture or otherwise, they should be made to disclose 
the secret of the hiding-place. 

In this way the Orleanists became out of favour 
around Paris, but that which still more offended the 
people was the manner in which the Armagnacs mocked 
at their imbecile King, whom the people loved. The 
Gascons had a playful habit of catching some unfortu- 
nate peasant, and, after cutting off his nose and ears, 
saying, " There now, go and show yourself to your 
idiot of a King." As on their way to Saint-Denis the 
followers of Armagnac had sacked every town they 
had passed through, the people turned all the more in 
their hearts to Burgundy. 

This did not, however, alter the fact that the only 
armed force of any importance was that which 
Armagnac commanded, that they pressed Paris on all 
sides, and that Jean Sans Peur was powerless to make 
them relax their grip on the city. 

Then was seen the strange sight of the Due de 
Bourgogne summoning Henry IV. of England to 
his assistance. He made a new commercial alliance 
between Flanders and England. He offered one of 
his daughters, with a large dowry, to the Prince of 
Wales, and promised, so the Orleanists said, to return 
the Duchies of Guyenne and Normandy to England. 



The Comte d^Armagnac on the Scene 83 

Vainly did the young Due Charles d'Orldans write 
and beg Henry IV., in the name of the relationship 
existing between them, not to help his father's 
murderer. Henry tersely replied that he had accepted 
the Due de Bourgogne's offers. 

When the English advanced from Calais, the 
Armagnacs fell back before them, from town to town. 
They crossed the Loire and lost Poitiers. With the 
good-will of the people, who greatly preferred the 
English to the Armagnacs, the pursuing force, with 
which was Jean Sans Peur and the imbecile King, 
whom he dragged everywhere, shut up the Gascons in 
Bourges. Here want of food and the plague, which 
filled the countryside with corpses, compelled the two 
parties to patch up what was called the Peace of 
Bourges. It was signed in July 141 2, and by it Jean 
Sans Peur falsely promised to restore the possessions 
of which the various Princes of the Orleans party had 
been deprived by his followers. 

Now at once followed a strange turn in the game. 
Henry IV. deserted his allies. He sent an army to 
attack the Burgundian forces that were in Guienne, 
while Armagnae and the Princes donned the red cross 
of Saint George and became his allies. The Princes 
did homage to the English for their possessions, while 
the Gascons handed over to them at least a score of 
places in the south of France ; but the Comte d' Armag- 
nae was confirmed for ever in his fiefs. 

While Burgundy and Armagnae, in their hatred of 
one another, were thus each in turn bartering away 
France to the enemy of their country, matters came 
suddenly to a temporary standstill, owing to the death 
of Henry IV., which took place in 14 13. 



CHAPTER VII 
The Revolution of the Butchers 

1413 

In about the year 141 2 the idea of treating the people 
as a dominant force, of striving to sway public opinion, 
first came into vogue. At that time the leaders of 
both the contesting parties commenced to issue mani- 
festos, and further to employ rabid and savage-tongued 
preachers to inflame the populace against their 
opponents. 

The preachers, usually belonging to the University, 
employed by the Burgundian side carried the more 
weight. The manifestos also of the Due de Bour- 
gogne were the more efficient in stirring up those of 
the capital against his opponents. 

One reason for this was that he put his own words 
into the King's mouth, and published his appeals to 
public opinion by Royal authority. For instance, in 
February 141 2, he caused the King to issue an appeal 
to all both of the langue doil and the langue d'oc. 
While asking for monetary help, the King, so beloved 
of the people, praised up his good bourgeois of Paris, 
made excuses for the disturbances of the party of 
Burgundy, and held up to public execration the evil 
behaviour of the men-at-arms of the Orleanist faction. 

84 



The Revolution of the Butchers 85 

Nevertheless, while controlling the King, and, 
through him in a great measure gaining the sympathy 
of Paris, the Due de Bourgogne began to find the then 
Dauphin Louis, who was his son-in-law, eluding him. 
This youth was seventeen years of age at the time of 
the extraordinary Revolution we are about to describe, 
and he died three years later. He was the third 
Dauphin. His eldest brother Charles having died 
when only a few months old, a second Charles died in 
1400, while John was to succeed Louis for a year only. 
Thus there were four Dauphins before the third son of 
Charles VL who was named Charles, and who eventu- 
ally reigned as Charles VH. 

While the Dauphin Louis withdrew himself from 
his father-in-law, the University remained the ally of 
Jean Sans Peur. This body, seeing the difficulty that 
there was for the Due of procuring enough money to 
carry on the war, and the further difficulty that there 
was for him to establish peace, declared that bold 
reforms were necessary, and that the King must carry 
them out. 

The two faculties in the University, of Theology 
and Arts and Logic, were much divided among them- 
selves. That of Arts and Logic was divided into four 
so-called *' nations," but each nation contained not 
only Frenchmen, but Danes, Irish, Scotch, and 
Lombards. The Doctors of the faculty of Arts, 
nevertheless, to a great extent ruled those of Theology. 
Among this latter class were many begging monks, 
men who had become vicious from their own poverty, 
and only anxious in consequence to inflict all the 
suffering that they could upon others. It was among 
those of the Carmelite Order that the Due de Bour- 



86 The France of Joan of Arc 

gogne recruited his most violent preachers, and of 
these the principal was a certain rabid monk named 
Eustache de Pavilly. 

Having determined to interfere in the Govern- 
ment, the Doctors of the University applied to the 
Parliament of Paris to join with them in making 
remonstrances to the King. The body of learned 
Magistrates of whom the Parliament was composed 
had too great a respect for the Royal authority to do 
anything of the kind. Accordingly, they replied 
tersely to the University " that it would be very 
unbefitting for a Court established to dispense the 
King's justice to make of itself a complaining party 
to demand that justice." 

From this refusal of the Judicial class to join in 
the proposed revolutionary measures, it became evident 
that, whatever might be the new concessions, laws, 
and ordinances obtained by the University from the 
Crown, there would be no legal body to enforce them. 
When it became evident that the Parliament would 
do nothing in any way calculated to shake the Royal 
Authority, the University determined to go ahead and 
reform the Kingdom itself 

Its first step was to send the Carmelite Eustache 
de Pavilly to denounce certain persons to the King. 
Among these, in violent language, he accused Jean 
Sans Peur's own right-hand man, the violent Provost 
Dessessarts. This man escaped, leaving word that if 
his accounts were two millions short it was because the 
money had been paid over to the Due de Bourgogne. 

The Provost returned, however, to Paris shortly, 
and occupied the Bastille in the name of the Dauphin. 

The Dauphin, while thus acting openly for the 



The Revolution of the Butchers 87 

Orleanlst faction, Imagined that the people of Paris 
would desert Jean Sans Peur and become Armagnac. 
On the contrary, the people, in their thousands, 
besieged the Bastille. 

The Due de Bourgogne now persuaded Dessessarts 
to come out from the security of the fortress, vowing 
on the Cross that his life would be safe and that he 
would defend him with his own body. No sooner 
had Dessessarts yielded than the people — the better 
class of the bourgeoisie, which was acting under 
the instigation of the University — arrested him, saying 
that he should have a fair trial. 

There were, as it happened, a vast quantity of 
butchers in Paris, who were divided Into two 
fraternities, that of the Great Butchery, who lived 
in the Parish Saint-Jacques, and those of the Butchery 
of Sainte-Genevieve. The master-butchers were 
honest citizens whose offices were hereditary, the same 
families retaining them for centuries. Some of these 
families of butchers, which had been in existence for a 
couple of hundred years before Charles VI., were still 
established In Paris as late as the eighteenth century. 

Although many of these master-butchers were very 
rich, according to their rules they still personally 
exercised their calling. They therefore remained 
strong, lusty, accustomed to scenes of blood, handy 
with the axe or the knife. Being celebrated for their 
attention to religious observances, many of the master- 
butchers founded chapels in honour of their favourite 
saints. The butchers of Sainte-Genevieve were not, 
however, on good terms with the Abbot of that Abbey, 
who had formerly been their feudal Seigneur. He 
objected to their melting down suet In the quarter, 



88 The France of Joan of Arc 

at the risk of setting fire to the houses, objected also 
to their selling meat on fast-days — habits which they 
declined to discontinue. 

This fraternity, which was inclined to violence, 
resided close to the Carmelite Convent, and was on 
friendly terms with the violent monk Pavilly. The 
chief family of their clan was named Legoix, and was 
on good terms with the disputatious students of the 
University. Under the sway of the master-butchers, 
and at their disposition for good or evil, there was 
a regular army of under-butchers and butcher-boys, 
who filled various offices. Some were slaughterers, 
some stunned the animals, some prepared tripe, some 
were flayers. The masters imagined that they could 
always hold these in hand, that even if they started 
them on any mischief they could recall them to order 
at a word. 

Under the rule of the family Legoix there were, 
however, two men who were before long to prove 
that they could not be controlled. These were the 
skinner Caboche and the tripe-seller Denisot. From 
the name of the former, the whole party of the Parisian 
butchers became before long designated by the name 
of *' Les Cabochiens." 

After the arrest of the Dauphin's man Dessessart, 
the master-butchers who had headed the movement to 
attack the Bastille realised that they held Paris in 
their hands. Friends of the University, friends of 
the Due de Bourgogne, they had none to gainsay 
them. 

In their blind devotion, they considered that all 
the evils which had fallen upon the distracted kingdom 
of France were but a part of that same Divine punish- 



The Revolution of the Butchers 89 

ment which had rendered the King insane and caused 
the death of Louis, Due d'Orl^ans. It was the just 
reward for the sins of both the King and his brother, 
for the immoraUty of their lives. But, in their 
devotion and love of orderly habits, the Legoix and 
other master-butchers determined that the young 
Dauphin Louis should not be allowed to fall into 
similar errors, lest the Divine chastisement should 
spread still further throughout the land. Now the 
boyish Dauphin was extravagant, he was also very 
musical, and kept very late hours, turning night into 
day, and keeping the town awake with his organs, 
choristers, and fiddlers. This was more than the 
butchers could stand. They determined to withdraw 
from the young Prince all those who led him astray, 
and, at the same time, to instil into his young mind 
the fear of God. 

The better to effect this purpose, they placed at 
their head a venerable surgeon named Jean de Troyes, 
a man who was celebrated for his powers of oratory, 
and proceeded in force to the Hotel Saint-Paul, the 
palace where the Dauphin was. They demanded 
that the Dauphin should come to the window and 
hear what they had got to say to him. As his cousin, 
Jean Sans Peur, was within, and advised him to do 
so, Louis complied. 

Jean de Troyes thereupon addressed the Prince, 
saying that the people had only appeared in arms in 
order to prove that they were ready to lay down their 
lives for him. They wished him, however, to under- 
stand the displeasure with which they regarded his 
giddy youth, and at seeing him surrounded by traitors 
who led him astray. They feared lest the evil educa- 
6 



90 The France of Joan of Arc 

tion which he was receiving from these traitors should 
make him incapable of reigning later on, and they 
were determined to exercise vengeance upon those 
from whom he learned such evil habits. 

The discourse terminated by a formal demand to 
the Prince to hand over to the mob of butchers those 
evil counsellors by whom he was surrounded. 

In reply, the Dauphin thanked the '*bons bour- 
geois " for their solicitude on his behalf, and asked them 
now to go home and leave alone the servitors to whom 
he was attached. The Dauphin's Chancellor added : 
"If you will name the traitors, we will see that they 
are punished." 

" You are yourself the first on the list," howled the 
butchers. '' Here it is, look at it ; there are fifty more 
Seigneurs beside you." 

Then they forced the Chancellor to read the list 
aloud, twice in succession. 

Despite his rage and indignation, the young 
Dauphin saw that resistance was in vain. With tears 
in his eyes, he forced the Due de Bourgogne to swear 
on the Cross that no harm should happen to his 
people ; but in the meantime the butchers were break- 
ing in the doors and searching the palace. 

The Chancellor was seized, the King's cousin, the 
Due de Bar, also. Old La Riviere, chamberlains, 
equerries, and valets de chambre, all were violently 
dragged out of the H6tel Saint-Paul. The Dauphin's 
young wife, the daughter of the Due de Bourgogne, 
threw her arms around one gentleman and endeavoured 
to save him ; but the butchers tore him from her arms. 

All the prisoners were dragged off, some being 
tied on horses, in the direction of the Tower of the 



The Revolution of the Butchers 91 

Louvre. Many, however, were murdered on the 
way and thrown Into the Seine. Some of these were 
quite harmless people, such as a furniture-dealer and 
a fiddler, accused of leading the Dauphin into expen- 
sive habits and encouraging his late hours. 

Not content with this first attempt to reform the 
Dauphin, the ferocious butchers kept the ball rolling. 
Daily they returned to the Hotel Saint-Paul, bringing 
with them religious teachers to instruct the young 
Prince in the way he should go. The addresses of 
Eustache Pavilly, to which he was compelled to listen, 
would have been enough in themselves to kill him 
from ennui, had there not been the constant danger 
of the terrible butchers behind the Carmelite monk. 

*'You have been taught," declaimed the never- 
ending Eustache, ** an odious and insupportable thing 
to the King's good subjects : to make of night day, to 
pass the time in feastlngs, in horrid dances, and in other 
ways altogether unbecoming to the Royal Majesty." 

And so he went on, by the hour together, often 
with long homilies, delivered in the presence of the 
Queen or the various Princes, traversing point by 
point the duties of the great, drawing examples from 
the past history of France, or from the old Testa- 
ment. It is, indeed, no wonder that the Dauphin 
Louis died young! 

His cousin, the Comte de Vertus, one of the sons 
of Louis d'Orl^ans, contrived to escape from Paris, 
and he, seeking to follow his example, wrote to the 
Princes with the Armagnacs to come and deliver him. 
The butchers were too sharp, however, for any project 
of evasion to prove successful. They occupied the 
gates of the palace day and night, and even estab- 



92 The France of Joan of Arc 

llshed there as door-keeper old Jean de Troyes. The 
King and his son were therefore kept within quite 
securely — for their own protection — by the good and 
virtuous butchers. 

Even had the devout master-butchers been willing 
to leave off the revolt which they had commenced at 
the instigation of the University, matters had now 
gone beyond them, for all of the lesser orders of the 
fraternity, headed by Caboche the skinner and 
Denlsot the tripe-seller, had now taken the matter in 
hand. These had secured the outposts of Paris ; 
Charenton and Saint-Cloud, whence the food came to 
the city, were in their hands. 

The people of Flanders — those of Ghent — wearing 
the white hood of that place, now came to Paris. 
They said that they also required to have the custody 
of their Prince. The Due de Bourgogne was compelled 
to deliver over into their hands his eldest son, the 
Comte de Charolais, with his wife, a very young 
daughter of Charles VI. Before leaving with these 
hostages, the people of Ghent introduced the fashion 
of the white hood in Paris, where all adopted it as a 
sign of liberty or reform. The people even caused 
the King to accept and wear the white hood of 
Ghent. Churchmen, men and women of quality, 
market-women and fish-wives, all wore this badge of 
Revolution ; while any person who wore it crookedly 
was supposed to do so in derision, and liable to ill- 
treatment or death. To pull down one corner of the 
hood was considered as the equivalent of wearing the 
sign of the Armagnacs. The Dauphin did this one 
day out of mockery, when the butchers expressed the 
greatest indignation. 



The Revolution of the Butchers 93 

Having imprisoned all the Seigneurs of the 
Dauphin's entourage, the lower orders, being mostly 
out of work, now commenced all kinds of acts of 
violence, rich bourgeois being seized by them and 
held for ransom. Woe to him who did not pay ! 
The Doctors of the University had by this time be- 
come both ashamed and tired of their alliance with 
the butchers, but, not knowing how to get matters 
back as they had been before the Revolution, 
they resorted to people who saw visions for advice. 
Eustache de Pavilly failed to gain much light, even 
from an old woman who saw three suns in the sky at 
once. Nor did another woman, who saw the King of 
England sitting on the top of the towers of Notre- 
Dame, do much to elucidate the situation. 

That worthy man Juvenal des Ursins, now Advo- 
cate-General, the friend of the King, was at length 
consulted by his opponents. He gave the apparently 
frank advice that the Princes should become reconciled 
with each other. It was good advice, but no one knew 
how to bring such a simple matter about. The honest 
Juvenal was merely laughing at those of the Bur- 
gundian party in his sleeve, and he says slyly in his 
records that the Carmelite Pavilly was contriving to 
fill his own purse during the whole of the period that 
he was going about noisily mouthing Reform to the 
Dauphin and the kingdom. Jean Sans Peur, like the 
University, had got thoroughly sick of his friends, 
when suddenly the butchers came to the palace with 
another list of traitors. Headed by a brutal Bur- 
gundian captain, named H^lion de Jacqueville, they 
broke into the King's Hotel, and commenced by 
laying violent hands on Louis of Bavaria, the Queen's 



94 The France of Joan of Arc 

brother. Many others were also roughly seized, 
including thirteen of the ladies of the Queen and the 
Dauphin's wife's Households. It was in vain that the 
young Bavarian Prince begged for a week's grace in 
which to celebrate his nuptials, in vain also that the 
Due de Bourgogne begged for him. After breaking 
all the doors, the butchers marched off with their 
prisoners, male and female, among them being a 
Burgundian captain whom they had themselves placed 
in the Hotel Saint-Paul. 

The old Duc: de Berri and the Orleanist Princes 
now tackled the University, and demanded to know 
if it acknowledged responsibility for all these outrages. 
In reply the Doctors equivocated. Thereupon, not 
knowing how far matters might go, this great Prince, 
the King's uncle, persuaded the imbecile monarch to 
sign an *' ordon nance " of reform, which was declared 
*' inviolable." There were seventy pages in this code, 
but we need not go into them. Many of the clauses 
were excellent, if only they could be carried out. But 
in spite of the code, there was nobody to carry it out 
with the exception of the authorities of the Commune 
of Paris, composed of mere Cabochiens. Nobody 
would assist them with money, either to carry on the 
war against the English or to run the government of 
the country. The Church refused to pay, the Cabo- 
chiens themselves could not pay, old Juvenal des 
Ursins went to prison rather than pay anything to 
this irregular government. When the Cabochiens 
seized some money, the result of a fair which belonged 
to the monks of Saint-Denis, even their friends of 
the University cried out loudly against them. The 
Doctors forced the Cabochien government even to 



The Revolution of the" Butchers 95 

return some money which it had raised by taxing 
some officials connected with the University. 

Thereupon the Government of butchers, which 
had honestly endeavoured to send a force against the 
English at Dieppe, became wild with rage at being 
thus blocked in all directions. In their fury they 
pursued one of the most celebrated of the Doctors, 
named Gerson, and he was compelled to hide in the 
crypt of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. 

In their anger, also, at seeing all those who should 
have supported the code, and paid according to its 
provisions, refuse so to do, they determined to make 
but short work of the numerous prisoners. Their trial 
was hurried, and sentences rapidly pronounced by a 
commission that was appointed. First a traitor was 
executed. He had been the means of several hundred 
bourgeois of Paris falling into the hands of the 
Armagnacs. Next followed the trial of the cruel and 
warlike Dessessarts, whose life Jean Sans Peur had 
sworn on the Cross should be sacred. He had been 
on both sides in turn, and no oath of the Due de 
Bourgogne could protect him. Dessessarts was dragged 
on a hurdle to the Place de Greve, and executed on 
July I, 141 3. This bold rascal did nothing but laugh 
mockingly, and jeer at the Cabochiens, the whole time 
that he was on the hurdle and until his head fell. 
The ruffianly captain, H^ion de Jacqueville, went to 
the prison where old La Riviere was confined, and 
insulted him. Then, becoming enraged at the replies 
which he received, he knocked his brains out. La 
Riviere's body was, however, taken to execution next 
day among a large batch of living victims. 

While these horrors were going on, and his friends 



9 6 The France of Joan of Arc 

being killed, some men of the watch heard, one night, 
singing and dancing in the foolish young Dauphin's 
apartments. Jacqueville and the butchers broke in 
upon him and asked the Prince if it was decent for 
a Son of France to dance at such an hour, half-past 
eleven ? The captain was so insulting to the Dauphin 
and his friend, the Sieur de la Tr^mouille, that the 
Prince lost his temper and flew upon Jacqueville with 
his dagger. He struck the brutal captain three times 
on the body, but he was wearing a shirt of chain 
armour, which saved his life. The Due de Bourgogne 
contrived to prevent the subsequent murder of La 
Tremouille in the Dauphin's presence. After this, 
many of the more decent citizens rushed to assure 
the Dauphin of their sympathy, many of the lowest 
orders also, worn out with being compelled to be 
perpetually on guard and going the rounds, became 
sick of their own party and anxious to secede. 

The Princes, being well informed, advanced on Paris 
and offered peace. The Dauphin aiding within the 
city, the University and the Parliament decided in 
favour of a conference. The skinner Caboche opposed 
it, with threats ; but his day was dead, no one listened 
to him, and the old Advocate-General, Juvenal des 
Ursins, worked hard to bring about the downfall of 
the butchers. He contrived to cause the offers of the 
Princes to be read aloud in all quarters of the city, 
when the great majority carried the day against the 
minority of the butchers. A brave carpenter named 
Cirasse boldly bearded the butcher Legoix to his face 
and jeered at him, and everywhere people were heard 
crying out "Peace! Peace!" They were willing to 
accept it at any price, and even the Due de Bourgogne 



The Revolution of the Butchers 97 

and the Cabochiens themselves were compelled to 
follow in the train of the Dauphin when, in the 
beginning of August 14 13, he proceeded to set the 
prisoners free from the Tower of the Louvre. 

The Due de Bar and the Duke of Bavaria were 
found to be still alive, and they were immediately- 
proclaimed Captains of the Bastille and other Forts 
of Paris, while the people cried out for the bold 
carpenter, Guillaume Cirasse, to be installed as Sheriff 
in place of Jean de Troyes, the surgeon. 

This latter, and two of the butchers, were imme- 
diately put to death, while the populace gaily set to 
work to pillage the houses of the remainder of the 
Cabochiens, who fled for their lives. 

While several of his followers were seized in his 
hotel, the Due de Bourgogne considered that he like- 
wise would do well to leave Paris in a hurry. He made 
off with the King, but Juvenal, with some mounted 
citizens, overtook Jean Sans Peur at Vincennes, and 
made him yield over the person of Charles VI., with 
whom the gallant Advocate-General returned in triumph 
to Paris. The University had stipulated that the 
Princes should not re-enter Paris ; but the young Due 
d'Orleans marched in with the Dauphin, both being 
dressed exactly alike, and both wearing the white 
scarf of the Armagnacs. Everybody at once assumed 
this badge. Even the images of the Virgin and the : 
Saints were draped with the Armagnac colours. 



CHAPTER VIII 
How Henry V» took Harfleur 

The absence of Jean Sans Peur after the Revolution of 
the butchers was not to last for long, since many of the 
exiled Cabochiens, who had joined themselves to him, 
determined the Due de Bourgogne to make an attempt 
to regain Paris. There he had been publicly declared 
a rebel, and his estates sentenced to be confiscated, 
but the Dauphin Louis, being tired of the restraint 
imposed upon him by the Princes, secretly wrote to 
his cousin, the Due de Bourgogne, and invited him to 
return. His investment of Paris proved, however, by 
no means a success, for the Comte d'Armagnac had 
arrived with a large force, and, after driving Jean 
away, pursued him with the King and the Princes. 

The King's army determined to carry out the con- 
fiscation of the Burgundian territories. The cruelties 
of the Armagnacs, however, were so terrible at the 
capture of Soissons that when the force besieged the 
Due de Bourgogne in Arras the people of that place 
made a furious and prolonged resistance. 

The King soon became tired of the war, and de- 
termined to listen to the Due's offers to make a merely 

formal capitulation of Arras. This was to consist in 

98 



How Henry V» took Harfleur 99 

his offering the keys of the city to Charles VI., thus 
saving an assault. Juvenal des Ursins relates that 
the mad King could not be persuaded to refuse to 
treat, and tells an amusing story of the failure of a 
Grand Seigneur to make him change his mind. This 
Seigneur found the King in bed, and, pulling him by 
the foot, woke him up. The King asked his *'beau 
cousin " what he required, when the nobleman replied, 
merely his permission to storm Arras. The King re- 
fused. When the Seigneur expressed his horror that 
the King declined to attack " this bad, false, traitorous 
and disloyal man, who had falsely and evilly killed his 
brother," Charles VI. mildly replied, '' The fair son of 
Orleans has forgiven all that." The Seigneur would 
not take no for an answer. ** Alas ! Sire," he con- 
tinued, '* think that you can nev^r see your poor 
brother again!" The King, however, pithily replied : 
'' Beau cousin, get out of this ! I shall see him again 
at the Day of Judgment ! " 

Accordingly Arras was not assaulted, and a treaty of 
peace between the Orleanists and Burgundians was 
patched up in September 1414. The principal terms 
of this treaty were that in future neither the white 
scarf of Armagnac nor the Cross of Burgundy should 
be permitted to be worn. In Paris, however, the 
Princes showed no moderation, and, having the King 
in their hands, squandered immense sums. The 
honest Juveaal, who had become Chancellor, protested, 
when his protest merely resulted in his seals being 
taken away from him. The distinguished Churchman 
Gerson indulged, before the King and the Princes, in 
the most bitter invective of Jean Sans Peur upon the 
occasion of a funeral service held in commemoration of 



loo The France of Joan of Arc 

the Due d'Orldans, and thus the great quarrel was 
kept alive as before, with no hope of settlement. 

While the struggle of the Armagnacs and Bur- 
gundians was tearing France to pieces, the great 
struggle of the Church, the settlement of the Great 
Schism, had, as mentioned above, been attempted at 
the Council of Pisa. While for long past all the 
Universities in France, all the bodies of churchmen 
in Europe, had been flying at one another's throats 
over this matter of the rival Popes, the great as- 
semblage at Pisa had at length decided to depose 
both of the Pontiffs, and to elect a third Pope in their 
place. This third Pope, Alexander V., was soon 
succeeded by a fourth Pope, John XXII., but still the 
two original Popes, Gregory XII. of Rome and 
Benedict XIII. of Avignon, refused to resign at the 
command of the rebellious churchmen of all parties. 
The subterfuges to which both resorted, apparently in 
collusion with each other, to avoid resigning were 
most amusing, and we will describe them presently. 
In the meantime, it is no less amusing to consider the 
constitution of the Council of Pisa. 

This, when assembled in the Duomo, the ancient 
Byzantine cathedral of that place, consisted of no less 
than twenty-two Cardinals, four Patriarchs, two 
hundred Bishops, three hundred Abbots, four Generals 
of the begging orders, the representative deputies of 
two hundred cathedral Chapters, and of thirteen 
Universities. There were, in addition, present three 
hundred Doctors and the Ambassadors of many States. 
All of this immense congregation of rebels were 
unable to induce Gregory and Benedict to yield ; and 
yet each of these Popes cunningly announced his 



How Henry V* took Harfleur loi 

intention of yielding if he could meet with the other, 
so that they might both resign the Papal Tiara at the 
same time and in the same place. 

The difficulty arose when efforts were made to 
bring about this meeting, as every day each made new 
objections. They said that the routes by land were not 
safe, that they must be furnished with safe-conducts. 
When these were sent by Kings and Princes, they 
found them unreliable and required the money to 
provide suitable escorts of their own. Then, not 
having sufficient funds to carry out their journeys in 
proper state, the Popes put their Cardinals under 
heavy contribution. Then the Popes came to the 
conclusion that, after all, a sea-journey would be safer, 
and they demanded ships to take them to the place of 
meeting. When the ships were ready, they decided 
that it would be wiser to avoid the dangers of sea- 
sickness. After various other subterfuges, equally 
ridiculous, had been resorted to, Benedict XI 1 1. 
boldly declared himself to be tired of all this nonsense 
about yielding, and said that he considered that he 
would be committing a mortal sin by consenting at all 
to the yielding of the Papal authority to that of a 
mere council of subordinates. He retired, as already 
mentioned, to his native Aragon, where he continued 
to call himself Pope until 1423. It was not until the 
new Council at Constance deposed John XXIII., in 
141 5, and elected, as a sixth Pope, Otto Colonna, who 
became Martin V., that Gregory at length grew 
weary of the long-drawn-out conflict, and consented 
to lay aside his Papal Crown and the keys of Saint 
Peter. 

While the internal struggles of France and the 



I02 The France of Joan of Arc 

quarrels of the Church were occupying the public 
mind to the exclusion of other matters, a new danger 
was being prepared for France on the other side of 
the Channel. 

When Henry IV., son of John of Gaunt, Duke 
of Lancaster, had in the year 1399 replaced his 
deposed cousin, Richard II., on the English throne, 
he reigned in a great measure by the aid of the 
Established Church. 

Those honest religious reformers the Lollards, 
the followers of John Wyclif, the intellectual Master 
of Balliol College in Oxford, had been the friends of 
John of Gaunt and had asserted the freedom of re- 
ligious thought. They had scoffed at the French 
Pope of Avignon, and resented the opening in England 
of a market for the disposal of pardons, dispensations, 
and indulgences at so much apiece. They declaimed 
against the wantonness of the great ladies who, 
headed by the King's mistress, came to tournaments 
dressed in men's clothing, riding on noble coursers 
with girdles of gold and silver, and daggers slung 
across their bodies. Even, as Chaucer mentions, the 
courtly Prioress paraded her vice by the love-motto 
on her brooch. The Lollards boldly declared that 
the power of the King should prevail over that of the 
Church in temporal matters, and maintained that the 
immense wealth of the Church should be seized and 
employed for national purposes. 

After John Wyclif had died of a stroke of paralysis, 
his followers, among whom were many great Barons, 
had still remained strong in England. They had, 
however, been deserted by Henry IV. He had basely 
abandoned his father's allies to the tender mercies of 



How Henry V» took Harfleur 103 

the priesthood, and at the same time the usurper had 
diplomatically informed the wealthy ecclesiastics, who 
owned twenty-eight thousand of the knightly fiefs of 
England, that he desired nothing from the Church but 
her prayers. This had proved for him the way to get 
on in the world ; the bold and profligate Prince his 
son, however, kept on good terms with the Lollards, 
and was notably the friend of their leader, Sir John 
Oldcastle, who became Lord Cobham and openly 
defied the Bishops. It was from this noble. Sir John 
Oldcastle, that Shakespeare, blinded by sectarian 
prejudice, formed his ludicrous figure of Sir John 
Falstaff 

When the bold young Prince of Wales, in the year 
1 41 3, stepped into his father's shoes, he felt he had 
much to contend against, and that the House of 
Lancaster had still much to fear. There were still 
in England many partisans of Richard IL, the mur- 
dered son of the Black Prince, and, in addition, the 
rightful heir to the Crown was the young Edmund 
Mortimer, Earl of March, the great-grandson of the 
Duke of Clarence, the elder brother of John of Gaunt 
and the second son of King Edward II L 

In the Church Henry V. saw his salvation. This 
wild young Prince therefore abandoned his profligate 
career, and expressed much devotion. He likewise 
gave over his friend, Sir John Oldcastle, and his 
followers to the Bishops, to be burned as heretics, and 
posed as a saint. Henry V. then won the Church to 
his side ; he had, however, yet to reckon with the 
English nobility. These, notably many of the younger 
sons, were impatient for a renewal of the war with 
France, in which country they sought to win renown 



I04 The France of Joan of Arc 

and wealth. The people at large in England also, re- 
membering the successes of Cr^cy and Poitiers, which 
had brought them much of the riches of France, were 
anxious for a new opportunity of pillaging that country, 
where the quarrels of the Armagnacs and Burgundians 
seemed to offer a favourable opportunity. 

To secure himself upon his throne, the ambitious 
young Henry realised that he would do well to enrol 
as many of the various factions as possible under his 
banner, and should himself do some great feat of arms 
by , which all would become contented to recognise 
him as their lawful King. Henry, accordingly, upon 
his accession, claimed the French Crown, by right of 
descent. It was a frivolous claim since, although 
Isabelle of France, mother of Edward HI., had been 
the daughter and last direct heir of Philippe IV. 
(le Bel), the Salic Law had barred her from the 
succession. Moreover, if the legitimate claim to 
exclude the House of Valois were a good one, then 
Edmund Mortimer, the descendant of the Duke of 
Clarence, not Henry, the descendant of John of Gaunt, 
was the rightful King of France. Trifles such as 
these did not appal Henry V. He had, by hook or 
by crook, to keep his seat on the throne of England, 
and since the best way so to do was to drag in his 
train to France all the idle, discontented, rebellious, or 
wavering of England, to France he intended to go, as 
soon as ever opportunity should offer. 

The warlike young King, who had already had 
plenty of experience of fighting against the bold Owen 
Glendower in Wales, set to work to make his oppor- 
tunity without delay. 

He did not at first show his hand openly, but, 



How Henry V» took Harfleur 107 

while renewing the old Lancastrian friendly relations 
with Burgundy, began quietly making preparations on 
a large scale for an invasion. As early as the month 
of March 141 5, Henry made a treaty with Holland 
to supply him with ships ; he commenced impressing 
sailors, and bought carts for baggage- wagons. He 
laid in a large supply of horse-shoes and nails, pur- 
chased large quantities of oxen and cows ; further gave 
orders for the baking of bread and the brewing of 
beer on a large scale. Masons, carpenters, and lock- 
smiths were also impressed into his service before the 
end of that month. From these preparations, it will 
be observed that Henry was a foreseeing General, 
and intended not to leave anything to chance on 
landing in France, but to enter that country ** all 
found." 

In April he announced his intentions to Parliament, 
and ordered all his lords to get themselves ready. 
In May he feigned alarm of a sudden descent by 
the French in England, and wrote to the Archbishop 
of Canterbury and other prelates to organise the 
vassals of the Church '* for the defence of the 
kingdom." 

In June, while causing his knights to collect all 
men capable of bearing arms, and to divide them 
into companies, this prudent young King made efficient 
arrangements for the defence of the Scottish frontier. 
Further, he at the same time entered into negotiations 
with his old Welsh opponent, the noble Owen Glen- 
dower. In July he entered into treaties with the 
Kingdom of Aragon, the Duchy of Brittany, and, last 
but not least, with Jean Sans Peur, Due de Bourgogne. 

While thus carefully laying his plans, Henry V, 
7 



io8 The France of Joan of Arc 

had twice sent embassies to France, demanding the 
return of all the French territories which had been 
yielded to England, not as fiefs but as independent 
States, by the treaty of Br^tigny forty-five years 
earlier. These had included the whole of the great 
Duchy of Aquitaine, over which the Black Prince 
had reigned as an independent Sovereign during his 
father's life-time, but of which by far the greater 
portion had been subsequently lost. It also included 
several Counties and Viscounties in the neighbourhood 
of Calais. He demanded also the great Duchy of 
Normandy, and the hand of Catherine, the daughter 
of Charles VI., in marriage. This young Princess 
was only fourteen years of age in that year 141 5, but 
extreme youth of a Princess made but little difference 
in those days, and her elder sister, Isabelle, had been 
given over to King Richard II. at the tender age of 
seven. 

While making these modest demands Henry 
stated that he would wait for the French Crown until 
Charles died. An immense and solemn embassy 
came over to England in reply. The historian Rymer 
says that it consisted of twelve Ambassadors, and no 
less than five hundred and ninety-two persons in their 
suite. 

This was certainly doing things in style ! But 
while the French Envoys offered the young maiden 
Catherine with the immense sum of eight hundred 
and fifty thousand golden crowns, and agreed upon 
all other points demanded, they offered the Limousin 
instead of Normandy. Henry was, however, deter- 
mined to have Normandy. Once in possession of 
this, with the mouth of the Seine, with Harfleur, and 



How Henry V. took Harfleur 109 

that immense city Rouen, he would hold the gates 
of France, be able to walk over and secure the rest 
of the country at his leisure. Henry treated the 
members of this French mission with all courtesy, 
and kept them in England for three months. When 
all his preparations were complete he sent them off 
laden with rich gifts, while informing them that he 
was about to follow on their heels. 

Upon August II, 141 5, he appointed his brother 
John, Duke of Bedford, the Guardian of England, 
and immediately set about the embarkation of his 
army upon his transport ships. These, according to 
Monstrelet, amounted to as many as fifteen hundred 
vessels, although another French contemporary writer 
makes them a good deal less. 

The English Parliament had voted a very large 
sum for the expedition, and before sailing Henry 
endeavoured to placate parties at home by according 
a magnificent funeral to the remains of his murdered 
cousin, Richard H. 

Taking with him a goodly number of great 
Church dignitaries, instead of touching at the English 
port of Calais, Henry went with his fleet directly to 
Harfleur at the mouth of the Seine, and was neither 
molested on the seas nor opposed while landing his 
army. This consisted of a large number of mounted 
chivalry — no less than six thousand men-at-arms. 
When we remember that each man-at-arms had from 
three to six attendants, this mounted force must have 
been in the neighbourhood of twenty thousand men. 
There were, in addition, twenty-four thousand archers, 
armed with the longbow ; thus altogether it was a 
magnificent force. 



no The France of Joan of Arc 

Owing to his wisdom in hiring or buying his ships 
from countries like Holland and Zealand, subject to 
the influence of Jean Sans Peur, Henry knew well, 
before sailing, that he was sure of the neutrality of 
the Due de Bourgogne ; thus he had none but those 
of the Armagnac party to fear. Upon landing on 
Norman soil the English King assumed the title of 
the Duchy ; the people, however, did not receive the 
Due de Normandie with open arms. The different 
towns and castles kept themselves strictly on the 
defensive, and any small wandering parties of the 
English army were fallen upon and cut to pieces. 
Owing to his foresight in having taken with him a 
large quantity of provisions Henry was, however, 
able to keep his large force together, although at 
first all of Normandy of which he was the master 
was the muddy beach of the estuary of the Seine. 

Except from the unhealthiness of his camping- 
ground the King did not have much to fear, as since 
the time of the Cabochiens the country had had no 
settled Government. While the Burgundians had 
made themselves scarce to the north-east, the Ar- 
magnacs had retired to the south ; thus the centre of 
France remained practically undefended. However, 
the old Due de Berri, now almost eighty, soon made 
an effort. He took the Mar^chal de Boucicaut and 
the King with him to Rouen, on the Seine some 
distance above Harfleur, and endeavoured to collect 
the nobles and gentry of the north of France. Many 
of the gentlemen of Picardy, however, refused to 
flock to the French King's standard, having received 
word from the Due de Bourgogne not to stir without 
his orders. Others actually joined the English, pre- 



How Henry V* took Harfleur m 

ferring to fight on their side to that of the detested 
Armagnacs. 

Harfleur made, however, a brave defence when 
besieged, as a good many French nobles contrived 
to throw themselves within the walls. They were 
largely aided by the dampness of the climate ; more- 
over, fruit being abundant in the month of September, 
the English troops, whose provisions had become 
deteriorated, ate the fruit too freely. Thus the army 
soon became attacked with dysentery, and great 
numbers of all ranks, including the Bishop of Nor- 
wich, died. Thousands of the attacking force perished, 
but Henry, ever on the alert, first captured a relieving 
force with a powder-train from Rouen, and then 
completely destroyed a force of six thousand mounted 
gentlemen. These gens d'armes perished through 
their own rashness, which changed what might have 
been a successful surprise into a crushing defeat. 

Towards the end of the month that the siege 
lasted the fighting became furious, especially after 
huge breaches in the walls had been replaced by 
the besieged by palisades, which the English con- 
trived to destroy by fire. Henry gave the people 
of Harfleur no peace ; he never ceased firing upon 
them with his artillery day or night, until they became 
worn out for want of sleep. 

At last the defenders begged for two days more to 
see if help would come ; if not, they would surrender. 

"• Take four if you like," replied Henry, **but give 
me hostages, so that you may keep your word." 

He did wisely to take his hostages, since at the 
end of the four days, had he not held them, they would 
not have yielded. 



112 The France of Joan of Arc 

As it was, a good many of the defenders contrived 
to hold out for another fortnight in some neighbouring 
chateaux, to which they escaped ; but the city was 
forced to surrender. 

The English King behaved with the utmost 
haughtiness before he would consent to receive the 
deputies who sought him in order to surrender the 
keys of Harfleur. These unhappy men were kept 
waiting on their knees for hours in three separate 
tents, in each of which they were told they would find 
the King, before, at length, Henry deigned to make 
his appearance. 

Even then, for a long time, Henry pretended not 
to see the miserable, half-starved officials of Harfleur, 
who did not know but that they were about to be put 
to death. 

Eventually the King of England allowed himself 
to become aware of the presence of these unhappy 
beings, when he silently signed to the Earl of Dorset 
to receive the keys, and then allowed the messengers 
to depart with their lives. 

Henry V. made a state entry into the city, and, 
in accordance with the pious character that he had 
assumed, pulled off his shoes and entered the parish 
church barefoot, to return thanks to God for his 
success. He, however, revenged himself savagely 
upon the inhabitants of the city. All of the well-to-do 
bourgeois were held for ransom, as though they had 
been captured in battle. 

Then all of the inhabitants were driven out of 
the city, wherein it pleased the English to assert that 
they had been living unlawfully, as this Norman town 
was English soil. Not only all of the men, but young 



How Henry V* took Harfleur 113 

girls, married women, and children, all piteously 
lamenting, were ruthlessly turned out into the fields. 
Shame was added to cruelty. The women were 
stripped to the waist, and left with only a petticoat 
apiece. 

A dole of five sols was awarded to each as they 
were driven from their homes in this pitiable plight. 
Such was the chivalrous conduct of that saintly King 
Henry V. upon the conquest of the first city in his 
Duchy of Normandy. 



CHAPTER IX 

The Battle of Agincourt 

1415 

Henry V. had taken Harfleur, but he had had immense 
losses, including some of the greatest of his followers. 
Owing to wounds and sickness, he found himself com- 
pelled to send back at least five thousand more to 
England, where he feared lest the people should not 
be greatly impressed by his success. 

More than ever^ he realised, had it become incum- 
bent upon him to do something great and showy. He 
began by challenging the Dauphin Louis to single 
combat, which challenge the young French Prince 
declined to accept. 

Next, in order to show his disdain of France, he 
announced his intention of marching through the 
enemy's country from Harfleur to Calais, saying that 
he would do it in a week. 

Henry thought himself safe in making this boast, 
owing to the divisions between the Armagnacs and 
Burgundians, which had already prevented any serious 
force being sent against him while besieging Harfleur. 

Of his army the best and strongest men remained 

to him» There were thirteen thousand archers, and 

a couple of thousand men-at-arms, with their attend- 

114 



The Battle of Agincourt 115 

ants. It was but a small force, but compact and 
healthy. A week's provisions only were taken, as 
the King imagined that, should he be longer on the 
way, he would probably be assisted by the Burgundian 
commanders as he marched through Picardy and 
Artois. As for wine, there would be plenty of it 
for the men, as it was the season for the wine 
harvest. 

Like a wise leader, the English King gave, on 
starting, the strictest orders concerning the enforce- 
ment of discipline, and the avoidance of the Armagnac 
methods of ill-treating the inhabitants of the country 
to be passed through. Any instances of violation, or 
of pillaging churches would, he said, be punished by 
hanging, while for simple pillage any soldier in his 
force would immediately be beheaded. 

It was at the beginning of the second week of 
October that the English force started on this march 
of bravado through an aroused and hostile country. 
While passing the town of Arques, subsequently so 
famous for the first great battle of Henry of Navarre, 
the opposition of the inhabitants became active. The 
threat to burn the town and all the country round 
soon, however, brought the citizens to reason, and, in 
addition, procured large quantities of bread for the 
invading army. 

When the river Somme was reached, some few 
days later, various fords which were tried in succession 
by the advance-guard were found to be strongly held. 
A prisoner of distinction, moreover, solemnly swore 
that a very large French army was assembled in the 
rear of the parties holding the fords. 

The English, instead of attempting to cross, there- 



1 1 6 The France of Joan of Arc 

fore, proceeded to march up the river-bank, and only 
reached Amiens on the ninth day after the start, the 
soldiers becoming somewhat discouraged as they were 
cut off from their base, and saw but little chance of 
reaching Calais. The Burgundians were, however, 
good to them at such places as they held, and especi- 
ally supplied them liberally — almost too liberally — with 
wine. 

At length, near Nesles, Henry V. and his force 
seemed to be in desperate plight. Provisions were 
exhausted, and the unfordable Somme in front of 
them. The inhabitants of the country all ran away 
at their approach, and a large marsh made even an 
attempt to follow the course of the river dangerous. 

It seemed as if the pride of England were about 
to be humbled, and some terrible disaster to befall, 
when, in the moment of direst necessity, a bolt came 
from the blue. Turner says : '* But suddenly in the 
midst of their despondency, one of the villagers com- 
municated valuable information." 

This was, that on crossing the marsh, a ford would 
be found, one which the King of France had ordered 
a certain Captain de Saint-Quentin to destroy, and, 
moreover, to plant stakes in its midst. Nothing, said 
the peasant, had been done ; and, although the ford 
was both long and dangerous, he offered to show the 
way across. 

All the wood-work from a neighbouring village — 
doors, ladders, window-panes, logs, boards — were 
thrown into the river as a sort of a raft to aid in the 
dangerous crossing, and after twenty-four hours of 
anxious labour the English army was across the 
Somme (October 19, 141 5). Incredible as it may 



The Battle of Agincourt 117 

seem, no opposition was made to the crossing, and yet 
there was a large French army in the vicinity. 

In spite of the timid advice of the old Due de 
Berri, the remaining French Princes — the young Due 
d'Orldans, the Due de Bourbon, and the Constable 
d'Albret, had resolved to fight. They had gathered 
together all the noblesse of the south and the centre 
of France, and were waiting for the English. A 
council of war had been held, and the question of 
risking a battle or no put to the vote. Of the 
thirty-five Grand Seigneurs present, thirty voted for 
the battle. The old Due de Berri, however, being 
mindful of Cr^cy and Poitiers, insisted that neither 
the King nor the Dauphin should be allowed to risk 
their lives or liberty in the contest. He remembered 
too well the long English captivity of his father, King 
Jean II. 

The French army had, in spite of the veto of Jean 
Sans Peur, been largely reinforced by Flemish, and 
even Dutch, Seigneurs, and it was very numerous in 
the heavily armed gens cTarmes, whose horses were as 
heavily caparisoned with richly inlaid armour as the 
Knights who bestrode them. 

While Henry had been ascending the western side 
of the river, the French army had followed up the 
Somme from Abbeville to Peronne, where it halted. 
No sooner did it find the English force upon the same 
side as itself than, according to the laws of chivalry, 
the French Princes challenged the English King. 
They sent him a herald to ask him to name the day 
and the place for a battle, and requested him to be 
good enough to state which route he proposed to 
follow. To this summons Henry replied that he was 



1 1 8 The France of Joan of Arc 

going straight to Calais, and that, as he was not 
intending to enter any cities, he could be found at 
any time in the open fields. He ended his message 
by politely requesting his enemies to keep out of his 
way, and so avoid the effusion of Christian blood. 

While Henry divided up his force, for the sake 
of cover in that rainy weather, and sheltered it in 
various villages, the French made no effort to attack 
his scattered detachments, and thus missed a good 
opportunity. Thinking more about making a brave 
show on the day of the coming big encounter, the 
French chivalry assembled en masse near the Castle 
of Azincourt (Agincourt) in such a manner as to block 
the road by which Henry must advance to Calais. 

The cartel of defiance from the Princes was 
received on October 20, 141 5, and on Thursday, the 
24th of that month, there was an alarm that they were 
advancing to attack the English, who were on the line 
of march. A halt was called, and the men-at-arms, 
dismounting, offered up their prayers to God to 
protect them in the coming contest. Seeing no 
enemy, Henry continued his advance, and lodged for 
the night at Maisoncelle, near Agincourt. He allowed 
all of his prisoners to go away on parole, telling them 
that if those who had captured them survived the 
battle they could come and pay their ransoms at 
Calais. 

Details of the battle of Agincourt have been left by 
various participants in the great encounter. Of these 
the Picard Lefebvre de Saint- Remy, who subsequently 
became the Herald of the Burgundian order of the 
Golden Fleece, fought on the English side, while 
Jean de Vaurin was with the French. Juvenal des 



The Battle of Agincourt 119 

Ursins also throws some light on the composition of 
the forces. This latter says that the Due de Berri 
was very anxious to keep both the Due d'OrMans and 
Jean Sans Peur from joining the King's army in 
person, and to limit the followers of each to five 
hundred men. The party of the Due d'0rl6ans, 
however, had arrived en masses and while Jean Sans 
Peur carefully kept away, a good many Burgundians 
and Flemish were present. One who arrived late 
was Jean's brother, the Due de Brabant. This Prince 
considered that the honour of the family required him 
to join in fighting against the invading claimant of 
the French Crown. Another of his brothers, the 
Comte de Nevers, had joined the army earlier. 

Lefebvre makes out the numbers of the English 
force who actually took part in the combat to have 
been only about twelve thousand men. Of these 
some were Welsh, under David Gam, some Portu- 
guese, others men from Hainaut. Of the English 
archers ten thousand were present. Jean de Vaurin, 
who says that '' he knows the truth, having been on 
the side of the French," gives the French numbers as 
about fifty thousand; thus the odds were immense 
against Henry V. The King was, nevertheless, in 
good heart, and when Sir Walter Hungerford ex- 
pressed a wish that ten thousand more archers were 
present, made a pious reply : 

'* By the name of our Lord, I would not have 
another man ; the number that we have is that which 
He has willed." 

During the night before the battle, the two armies 
employed themselves differently. For fear of rain, the 
English knights carefully rolled up their banners and 



120 The France of Joan of Arc 

their mantles worked with their coats of arms. They 
took off their armour, and, after sharpening the points 
of their lances, had a good rest, upon straw procured 
from neighbouring stacks. The archers in the mean- 
time carefully replaced their old bow-strings by new 
ones. Every archer, during the preceding few days, 
had carefully cut a long stake, which he had sharpened 
at each end. These were to stick in the ground in 
front of them with one sharp point, bayonet-wise, 
facing the enemy's cavalry. Their preparations con- 
cluded, the soldiers confessed themselves to the priests, 
but very quietly, for Henry V. had given out that 
the punishment for any loud talking would be, for a 
gentleman, the deprivation of his horse ; for any one 
of lesser birth, the loss of an ear. 

In the camp of the immense French host, on the 
other hand, all was noise and confusion. There a 
great deal of the time was taken up in dubbing the 
squires knights. Big fires were blazing everywhere, 
and so greatly did the French despise the small force 
which they so immensely outnumbered that no military 
precautions were taken against a night-attack. 

The weather had been very rainy, and the ground 
upon which the French had encamped consisted of wet 
clayey soil. The misery undergone by many of their 
men-at-arms must have been great during that cold 
autumn night, as, in order not to soil their magnificent 
armour, many of them remained all night long in the 
saddle. As a cold rain came on, we can imagine the 
wretched discomfort which these must have undergone. 
On the morning of October 25, 141 5, Henry V., 
after hearing three Masses, put on his helmet. This 
was surrounded by a golden imperial crown. He rode 



The Battle of Agincourt 121 

a small grey horse, but wore no spurs. After advanc- 
ing his whole force to some untrampled ground, and 
while sending a Herald with certain offers to the 
French, he rode along his lines, exhorting his men to 
be brave, for the honour of the Crown and Old 
England. In particular, he reminded his archers that 
the French had threatened to cut off three fingers of 
the hands of each one whom they might capture. 

In the message which Henry sent to the Princes, 
he offered to give up the title to the Crown of France 
if the Duchy of Guyenne, considerably increased, the 
Province of Ponthieu, and the King's daughter, with 
an immense dowry, were handed over to him. He did 
not expect for one moment that these offers would be 
listened to, but the fact was that the ground was in 
such a terrible condition that neither side cared to 
advance to the attack. While the time was being 
wasted in these parleys, the archers were fortifying the 
ground to their front with their pointed stakes. A 
large party of archers were also being carefully placed 
in a wood, where they would remain in concealment on 
the flank of the French, should they advance. 

Meanwhile Henry had inquired from David Gam, 
the Welshman, what he thought of the numbers of the 
enemy. '' Sire," answered David, " there are enough 
of them to be killed, enough to fly, enough to be taken 
prisoners." 

While the English were only drawn up in a four- 
deep line, the French were divided into three immense 
solid masses of mounted men, each thirty-two ranks in 
depth. They resembled three forests of lances, and 
glittered with gold inlaid-armour, brilliant coats of arms, 
and numerous banners. All the leading Princes and 



122 The France of Joan of Arc 

Seigneurs were in front. Indeed, the Monk of Saint- 
Denis relates, so great were the quarrels among them 
as to who should occupy the posts of honour in the 
front ranks that they actually drew their swords upon 
one another to settle the matter. It would appear 
that they possessed artillery, but that it was not used. 
Further, although they had four thousand archers, and 
Paris had offered six thousand men, in their over- 
weening confidence the French chivalry refused to 
make any place for the employment of these com- 
moners. " What," they exclaimed, "do we require 
with these common people ? Are we not already three 
times as numerous as the English ?" 

The English men-at-arms were equipped much in 
the same style as the French. The archers, however, 
had no armour. Their caps were of leather, or of 
wickerwork interwoven with iron, and they carried 
axes and hatchets suspended from leathern belts. 
Many of them were without shoes, and one of the old 
chroniclers states that in order the more freely to 
wield their axes and wade through the mud, many of 
these hardy English archers had even divested them- 
selves of their breeches. If so, they must have 
appeared a terrible and ferocious band of raggamufiins 
as opposed to the gorgeously caparisoned French 
chivalry. 

As instruments of slaughter, however, they were 
far more efficient, especially as the French order of 
battle was such as to court defeat. Any leader 
possessed of but the rudiments of military skill should 
have foreseen that, in the deep formation of many 
ranks, only those in the front could wield their lances 
or battle-axes. 




CHARLES VII. OF FRANCE. 



123 



The Battle of Agincourt 125 

Stuck as their heavily armoured horses were in the 
trampled mud, when the English commenced the - 
conflict by advancing with a wild cheer, meant to 
encourage the enemy likewise to advance and join 
issue, the French could not move. To the astonish- 
ment of the English, they appeared to remain glued to 
the ground, and only by the most cruel application of 
the spur could the glorious chivalry of France at length 
move slowly at a laborious walk. In the words of 
Lefebvre de Saint- Remy : '' The French were so loaded 
with armour that they could not move forward. First, 
they were charged with coats of steel, long, passing 
the knees, and very heavy, and underneath leg-harness, 
and above white [steel] harness, and on their heads 
basinets [round helmets]. 

** They were so pressed one upon the other that, 
with the exception of those in front, they were unable 
to raise their arms to strike their enemies." 

Seeing the unfortunate French cavaliers thus 
sticking in the mud, the English archers halted, and 
from behind their planted stakes endeavoured to wake 
them up with flights of thousands of arrows, aimed at 
their faces. The shields carried by the Knights could 
not be raised, their bearers could only lower their 
heads to prevent themselves from being pierced in 
the face and eyes through their visors ; which, however, 
was the sad fate of many of these too well-defended 
yet all defenceless warriors. 

At length the two French wings, one from the 
side of Tramecourt, the other from that of Agincourt, 
contrived to advance in an attempt to charge. Terrible 
was the fate of those from Tramecourt, as they were 
taken in flank by the archers hidden in the wood. 
8 



126 The France of Joan of Arc 

The others also, advancing from Agincourt, were 
utterly unable to push their charge home in the face 
of the terrible arrows, which not only found the joints 
in the harness of both men and horses, but must, from 
the frightful mortality, in many cases also have pierced 
the steel itself 

But a small number, some couple of hundred or 
so, of the twelve hundred who commenced the charge 
reached the pointed stakes in front of the archers. 
All of the rest, many as yet unwounded, had fallen 
with their horses, and, while wallowing about in the 
slippery mire, were unable, owing to their heavy 
armour, to extricate themselves from the mud. 

The confusion became worse when the horses of 
those who reached the stakes, stung by the pitiless 
arrows, turned with their riders and dashed furiously 
back into the French ranks, which were unable to 
open to allow them to pass through. Now, indeed, 
was heard the shock of steel on steel, and, with the 
frightened horses plunging into the compact masses, 
fearful were the accidents that ensued. Riders were 
thrown in all directions and trampled into the deep 
mud, and many others had their limbs smashed to 
pieces by being jammed together between the plunging 
steel-clad horses. 

This was the moment chosen for the archers to 
charge in turn. Laying down their bows, the English- 
men sprung from behind their pointed stakes, and 
with their hatchets, and maces weighted with lead, 
proceeded to deal death in all directions among the 
struggling masses of the French chivalry. 

Wild and bloody was the scene, awful the clang 
of iron upon iron, as with fierce cries the terrible 



The Battle of Agincourt 127 

English and Welshmen butchered and slaughtered 
without mercy. Every stroke was bound to find its 
victim in man or horse, and when all of the French 
advanced body had been slaughtered, with King 
Henry at their head the English, both horse and foot, 
hurled themselves more savagely than ever upon the 
great compact mass in rear. Eighteen French gentle- 
men together now flung themselves upon the English 
King. They had sworn to perish or to lay low his 
golden crown. The result was that they perished to 
a man, while the King remained unharmed. 

Some historians, Monstrelet for instance, have 
described a supposed Homeric conflict as having now 
occurred between Henry V. and the Due d'Alen9on. 
In the terrible confusion of the battle, nobody can 
know what really took place, save that there was no 
space in the awful meMe for anything of the nature of 
a duel, nor would the fierce combatants on either side 
have been content to stand by at such a moment as 
calm spectators. That the Due d'Alen^on was among 
the slain is certain ; also there appears to be no doubt 
of the fact that the bold young King of England, 
while joining like the meanest of his archers in the 
awful butchery, had one of the golden ornaments shorn 
from the coronet which encircled his steel headpiece. 

Seeing that those of the French who could con- 
trive to disentangle themselves from the awful scene 
of carnage were making off from the field, the Due de 
Brabant, whose followers had remained behind, deter- 
mined to die nobly. Cutting a hole in his banner, 
this noble scion of Burgundy placed it round his neck, 
then threw himself among the victorious English, 
where he instantly fell to rise no more. 



128 The France of Joan of Arc 

A great many prisoners had been taken, chiefly 
from among the great lords who had fallen in the 
sticky mud and could not rise until helped by their 
valets, and who had yielded to the barefooted archers. 
Each of these archers was congratulating himself upon 
the fine ransom he would receive, when word was 
brought to the King that a body of Frenchmen was 
pillaging his camp and baggage. At the same 
moment he saw a part of the French rearguard, 
composed of Bretons and bold Gascons of Armagnac, 
rallying as if to make a counter-attack upon him. 
Seeing his men so encumbered with prisoners that 
they would be unable to fight, Henry now gave the 
cruel order to each man to kill his prisoners. The 
unbreeched archers, however, refused thus to destroy 
the geese from which they expected the golden eggs. 

Thereupon Henry selected two hundred men, to 
whom he gave explicit orders to slaughter these 
unhappy prisoners, who had been admitted to parole, 
otherwise their own lives would pay the forfeit. Much 
against their will, the two hundred were forced to 
comply with this terrible order, when there ensued 
an awful scene of carnage of unarmed men, butchered 
in cold blood. 

The attack on the camp proved to be by no means 
serious ; it was conducted, against the orders of their 
master the Due de Bourgogne, by peasants of Agin- 
court and its vicinity. Monstrelet, the Burgundian 
historian, says that although they took Jean Sans 
Peur a fine jewelled sword for his son, he punished 
the pillagers severely. 

Deprived of their prisoners, the half-naked archers 
now threw themselves upon the still warm bodies of 



The Battle of Agincourt 129 

the dead, whom they stripped, and thus soon provided 
themselves with new and better breeches than those 
they had cast off before the beginning of the battle. 
Underneath the heaps of piled-up corpses some were 
found still living. Among these was the young 
Charles, Due d'Orleans, the rallying head of the 
Armagnac faction. This Prince was spared and taken 
to England, where he was detained for many years, 
not being allowed to obtain his liberty by paying a 
ransom. He has since been celebrated as the poet 
Due d'Orleans. Upon the day following the battle 
there were still many of the wounded living. Of 
these, by Henry's orders, some were killed and some 
retained as prisoners. 

While the losses of the English in the battle of 
Agincourt amounted to some sixteen hundred, the 
French lost from ten to twelve thousand, chiefly of 
gentle birth. Among them were a hundred and 
twenty Grand Seigneurs who were entitled to carry 
their own banners, and seven Princes of the Blood 
Royal. These were the already mentioned Antoine, 
Due de Brabant, his brother Jean, Comte de Nevers, 
the Due dAlengon, the Constable dAlbret, and three 
cousins of Charles VI., members of the House of 
Bar. 

With all the stripped and naked corpses, with the 
dead and dying horses, many of these latter screaming 
in their agony, the battle-field was a terrible sight. 
As the Burgundian Lefebvre describes it : '* It was a 
pitiable thing to see the great noblesse which had 
there been slain, which were already all naked like 
those which are born of nothing." The son of Jean 
Sans Peur caused five thousand eight hundred of these 



130 The France of Joan of Arc 

dead nobles, among whom were his own two uncles, 
to be buried in an immense square. Many others 
were, however, borne off and buried separately. 

In spite of all the prisoners whom Henry had 
ordered to be butchered, there were yet retained alive 
fifteen hundred, and among them the greatest names 
in France. The Due de Bourbon, the maternal uncle 
of Charles VI., the Mardchal de Boucicaut, and Pierre 
de Craon, who had indirecdy caused the King's mad- 
ness, were among the number. 



CHAPTER X 

The Comte d^Armagnac almost King 

1415— 1417 

When one calls to mind the immense slaughter at 
battles such as Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt, the masses 
of armour-clad dead men and horses left strewn upon 
the field of battle, the question arises in the mind, 
What became of all the armour ? The victors cannot, 
except in cases of exceptionally rich suits, have carried 
it off. It would have been too cumbrous, while to the 
peasantry of the neighbourhood it must have been 
absolutely useless. Lances, swords, and spears might 
be carried away and perhaps come in useful again, but 
imagine the mountains of armour which would remain 
when the bodies of some fifteen, twenty, or twenty- 
five thousand had been stripped prior to burial ! The 
horses that died in these bloody encounters were 
probably never stripped at all, and, after slowly rotting 
in their steel cases, their still steel-clad skeletons must 
have remained for generations on the ground where 
they fell. It is indeed a strange problem to think of 
what became of all the vast debris of these great battles, 
which, even if left lying on the ground, must have 
prevented the ploughman at every yard from pursuing 
his arduous and peaceful avocation where so many 
had fallen. 

131 



132 The France of Joan of Arc 

Of the prisoners that remained in the hands of his 
men after Agincourt, Henry V. made a good business. 
He bought them at a low figure from their captors, 
then, removing them all to Calais, shipped them off to 
England, where he held them until he eventually- 
obtained immense ransoms. Nor were they as a rule 
released until, in addition to their ransoms, large sums 
had been paid for their keep during the time of their 
captivity. 

After the battle of Poitiers, when King Jean fell 
into the hands of the Black Prince, he was treated 
with the utmost courtesy. Instead of treating his 
Royal captive as merely Jean de Valois, as the 
English called him, the Prince of Wales behaved to 
him as though he were indeed a Sovereign, if fallen. 
He served him at table on bended knee, and, when he 
took him to London, made King Jean ride first on a 
noble white courser, while he himself modestly followed 
on a little black pony. Most courteous also was the 
Black Prince to his other captives, allowing many of 
them to go to their homes on parole, merely asking 
them to come to pay their ransoms at the time of 
the Christmas festivities, in which he asked them to 
join. 

Henry V. did not believe in all this politeness, and 
kept his prisoners of the greatest distinction, such as 
Charles, Due d' Orleans, and the young Prince Arthur, 
son of the recently deceased Due Jean IV. (de 
Montfort) of Brittany, under close constraint. And 
yet this Arthur was in a sense his half-brother, as he 
was the son by the first marriage of Jeanne de Navarre, 
the second Queen of Henry IV. Upon his arrival in 
London, Queen Jeanne was only allowed to hold the 



The Comte d*Armagnac almost King 133 

shortest of interviews with her son, and this meeting 
was all the more embittered from the fact that the 
young Prince at first mistook one of the Queen's ladies, 
who had preceded her, for his mother, and threw him- 
self into her arms. 

Immediately after the battle the prisoners were 
forced to listen to the hypocritical preachings of 
Henry V., who lost no opportunity of explaining to 
the unfortunate Frenchmen that God had allowed him 
to gain the victory on account of the sins of France, 
which deserved punishment. 

To Montjoie, the Herald of France, on the field 
itself, among the dead and dying, Henry observed 
sententiously, ** It is not we who have done this 
killing, but God, for the sins of the French." 

On the way to Calais the Due d'Orl^ans refused to 
eat and drink ; thereupon the King took the oppor- 
tunity of visiting him and moralising at considerable 
length : '* Beau cousin," he commenced, ** I know 
well that if God gave me grace to beat the French it 
was not because I was worthy, but because He chose 
to punish them. It is not to be wondered at, when 
one considers that never were seen such disorders, 
voluptuousness, sins, and evil vices as exist to-day 
in France. It is no wonder indeed if God be 
angry." 

With words like these, according to Lefebvre de 
Saint-Remy, who was present, would the unchivalrous 
Henry bully his unfortunate prisoners, and thus make 
their captivity more miserable. They came but badly 
from him, the disorders of his own youth being 
notorious to his unwilling listeners. 

There is, however, no doubt that there was far 



134 The France of Joan of Arc 

greater order preserved during the French wars of 
Henry V. in his armies than in .those of his opponents. 
While the French armies were followed by the 
mistresses of the Knights and other loose women, 
among the English soldiers were to be found no giddy 
girls. Nor was there any swearing or gambling 
among the English ranks. 

The Due d'Orldans was held as a prisoner 
in England for a quarter of a century, as the 
head of the Armagnac faction was considered too 
dangerous to be allowed to return to France. There- 
fore in England the unfortunate Prince remained 
for long years after all his numerous compatriots 
had been allowed to regain their native shores. 
At first he was confined with his fellow-prisoners at 
Windsor Castle, but he was soon separated from his 
friends and removed to the Castle of Pomfret. For 
so long as he was considered to have a chance of 
succeeding to the throne of France he was never 
allowed to leave this place. And yet, in spite of the 
precautions of the English, was the son of Charles 
d'Orleans to be fated to assume the French Crown, 
with the title of Louis XII., some twenty years after 
his father's release. 

In his captivity at Pomfret the Due d'Orleans was 
honourably treated, and he always spoke kindly of his 
gaoler and his wife as ** my very good host and my 
very sweet hostess." Nevertheless, the only distrac- 
tion allowed him being that of hawking, the poor 
Prince almost died of ennui during the long weary 
years. He devoted his time to versifying, and al- 
though his verse was not of the very highest order, 
still, for the day, it was good. Although, as might 



The Comte d^Armagnac almost King 135 

have been expected, there was usually a ring of 
melancholy in his stanzas, yet was Charles quite a 
pretty poet, especially in his love-verses. Of these the 
following is a specimen — in this poem Charles d'Orl^ans 
sings of his absent mistress : 

Dieu ! qu'il la fait bon regarder. 
La gracieuse, bonne et belle ! 
Qui se pourroit d'elle lasser ? 
Tous jours sa beaute renouvelle, 
Par deca ni delk la mer, 
Ne sgays dame ni demoyselle 
Qui soit entout bien parfait telle. 
C'est un songe que d'y penser ! 
Dieu ! qu'il la fait bon regarder ! 

While thus lamenting his 'chere amie' among those 
whom he had left behind him, the Due d'0rl6ans 
is said not to have found the fair ladies of England by 
any means unwilling to console him for her absence. 
Indeed, it is said, so greatly were the amiable qualities 
of Charles the prisoner-poet recognised by the great 
ladies of Albion, that in his honour, and that of his 
mother, the charming Valentina Visconti, was instituted 
the festival of Saint Valentine's day. 

We must now leave the Due d'Orleans to his 
captivity in England and turn once more to his party 
in France, of which the Comte Bernard dArmagnac 
in his absence became the supreme head. 

This domineering but subtle leader of a violent 
soldiery had, like the cousin and deadly enemy of 
d'Orldans, the assassin of his father, the Due de 
Bourgogne, carefully absented himself from the battle 
of Agincourt. 

Each of these was watching the turn of the cards. 
Jean Sans Peur had, to his son's great regret, likewise 



4 

136 The France of Joan of Arc 

prevented him from fighting for France upon this 
great occasion, for which this son, afterwards Philippe 
le Bon, never ceased to express his sorrow, whether 
sincere or no. 

The battle having swept away, in its thousands of 
slain and fifteen hundred prisoners, both the friends 
and the enemies of Armagnac and Bourgogne, left the 
board clear as the field for their ambition. Each now 
imagined that the power remained in his hands, and 
each made a dash for Paris, to secure with that city 
the possession of the person of Charles VI. 

Giving instructions to his army of Burgundians to 
follow him as soon as possible, no sooner did Jean 
Sans Peur learn the news of the great disaster to 
France than, with barely a dozen followers, he rode 
night and day until he reached Paris. Great and 
bitter was his disappointment to find that the wily 
d*Armagnac had got there before him. With six 
thousand of his savage Gascons, Comte Bernard had 
occupied Paris and, with both the King and the 
Dauphin in his hands, had caused himself to be 
nominated Constable of France, in the place of 
d'Albret, slain at Agincourt. 

Not far from the capital, at Lagny, Jean Sans Peur 
established himself, sending daily messengers to his 
numerous supporters within the city walls that he 
was coming to their assistance. When he had waited 
fiDr a couple of months without doing anything, the 
Parisians began to sneer at their would-be rescuer 
from Armagnac, saying that he was not Jean Sans 
Peur any longer, but '* Jean of Lagny, who never 
hurried." 

It will now be observed in what a remarkable 



The Comte d'Armagnac almost King 137 

manner death intervened to make the position of the 
Constable d'Armagnac yet stronger, by clearing all of 
the Princes out of his way. First, in the year 141 5, 
the Dauphin Louis died from the result of too con- 
tinuously turning night into day. He was only twenty 
years of age when called to a world beyond the strife 
of the Armagnacs and Burgundians, who had made 
of him but a pawn. In the following year he was 
followed to the grave by his octogenarian great-uncle, 
Jean, Due de Berri. Before the close of 14 16, the 
young Prince Jean, who had succeeded Louis as 
Dauphin, was also called to his rest. To complete 
this catalogue of death, Louis IL, Due d'Anjou and 
King of Sicily, the first cousin once removed of the 
imbecile Charles VL, followed the three other Princes 
to the grave in 141 7. D'Armagnac had now only left 
in a position to contend for power with him in Paris 
a mere child of the Blood Royal, in the person of 
Charles, the fifth son of Charles VL, who became 
Dauphin. This boy, born in 1403, was, however, 
reared in the Orleanist, that is to say the Armagnac 
fold, and, as his future actions will disclose, had no 
wish to associate himself, against the Constable, with 
the Due de Bourgogne. 

With this young Prince in his hands and the power 
in his grasp, Armagnac showed himself to be a man, 
the one man in France who was willing to make a 
renewed effort to defend the kingdom in its peril from 
the English. Henry V., after returning to England 
to celebrate his triumph, was now openly talking about 
coming to take possession of his city of Paris. Un- 
scrupulous, grasping, savage, and blood-thirsty, the 
Comte Bernard had shown himself to be all his life. 



138 The France of Joan of Arc 

but in this crisis he proved himself patriotic, a man of 
head and a man of daring. 

While all of France was In a condition of abasement 
from the recent crushing defeat, while too he knew 
the risk that he ran from Burgundy should he leave 
Paris, the Constable boldly took that risk. Quitting 
the capital with some gentlemen men-at-arms and 
his Gascons, he suddenly astonished the English in 
Harfleur, by appearing before that place and laying 
violent siege to it. 

What might have been the result of this bold move 
it is hard to say, had not the cowardice of some of 
Armagnac s gentlemen in an assault, which he headed 
in person, compelled him before long to abandon his 
courageous enterprise. He promptly hanged the 
nobles of his following who had shown the white 
feather, but the opportunity of a surprise was lost. 
This bold Gascon did not, however, at once give up 
the contest. Resolved to attack Harfleur by sea, he 
scraped together the money to hire a Genoese fleet 
and five thousand Catalan archers. With these he 
obtained a considerable advantage over the English, 
with much heavier tonnage. In the Channel. Not 
finding himself strong enough to reduce Harfleur, the 
Constable then returned to Paris. Here he found 
the Burgundian influence had much increased during 
his absence ; moreover, that a conspiracy was afoot to 
introduce Jean Sans Peur, and, so says Monstrelet, 
to massacre the Dauphin and any remaining Princes 
of the Blood Royal. While squeezing Paris tightly 
to obtain the money to keep a force under arms, the 
relentless Comte made short work of the conspirators, 
one of whom was a Canon, and brother of the last 



The Comte d'Armagnac almost King 139 

Bishop of Paris. The Canon was attired in scarlet 
and driven round the city in a tumbril, then walled up 
in such a manner that he could only be fed with bread 
and water through a hole in the wall. His associates 
were beheaded and drowned by the score in the Seine. 
So full of corpses was the river that bathing was 
prohibited, lest it should be made an excuse for counting 
the bodies floating about or lining the shores. A secret 
and efficient police was established by the Constable, 
and consternation reigned throughout Paris. 

Not satisfied with the Parliament or the University, 
the Comte soon allowed his vengeance to fall also 
upon these bodies, while four hundred wives and 
daughters of bourgeois, many being those of the 
butchers who had fled to Jean Sans Peur, were turned 
out of Paris, and roughly conducted by Armagnac 
soldiers to Orleans, the women being spared no in- 
dignity on the way that Gascon brutality could devise. 
The Queen also had earned the displeasure of the all- 
powerful Comte. Finding Isabeau secretly treating 
with Jean Sans Peur, the Constable threw one of her 
lovers into the river in a sack. Then he caused 
Isabeau herself to be seized in turn, carried off and in- 
carcerated in the castle of Tours. He now suppressed 
all hereditary offices among the butchers, and broke 
up the two great establishments of butchers into 
various smaller ones. The Comte also removed the 
chains which the bourgeois were accustomed to stretch 
across the streets. As a final precaution against a 
siege, he ordered every citizen to lay in a stock of 
provisions. By acting in this determined and over- 
bearing manner, the Comte d' Armagnac almost attained 
to the position of King of France. 



CHAPTER XI 

The Massacres of the Armagnacs 

1418 

While the Constable was acting thus vigorously, 
and even forcing every three citizens to provide for 
the cost of a man-at-arms, his great rival Jean Sans 
Peur cunningly contrived to deal him a subtle blow 
below the belt. Making a sudden descent upon 
Tours, he carried off the Queen, then, declaring her 
to be Regent, the Due de Bourgogne issued pro- 
clamations all over France to the effect that she 
forbade the payment of the taxes. We can easily 
imagine with what delight such a popular edict would 
be welcomed among us to-day ; how much greater, 
then, was the joy in all the great cities of France in 
a time when taxation was crushing, when salt even 
was forced upon the people by the State, whether 
it was required or no, and at a most exorbitant 
rate. 

The effect was soon apparent : the power of the 
Comte d'Armagnac commenced at once to diminish. 
When he considered that Rouen was in want of a 
garrison, and sent some Gascons, the people of that 
city rose in revolt, and butchered the chief magistrate, 

who wished to admit them. The gates of Rouen 

140 




HI 



The Massacres of the Armagnacs 143 

were closed upon these troops, as upon those of the 
invading English. 

While Paris, hungry and rebellious, was impotently 
raging against its oppressor, Henry V. landed once 
more in France, near Caen in Normandy, being 
accompanied by his brother, Humphrey, Duke of 
Gloucester, and forty thousand men. As the Due de 
Bourgogne was blockading Paris, and preventing the 
ingress of food, Henry very wisely saw that there 
was no need for him to hurry in an advance on the 
capital, which would soon be weak enough, owing to 
the quarrels of the rival factions. 

Secure in the secret neutrality of Burgundy, Henry 
proceeded quietly to complete his conquest of the 
Duchy of Normandy, sending off Gloucester, with one 
part of his forces, in one direction, while with the 
remainder he proceeded himself to besiege and reduce 
various cities, notably Caen. 

This was a large place, and a great centre of 
agriculture ; it formed the largest market in the north 
of France. As it would be most useful to Henry 
as a base for obtaining supplies, he adopted an in- 
genious, if not particularly honourable course to 
prevent any assistance being sent to Caen. While 
sending off Ambassadors to Paris to make deluding 
proposals for peace, he pressed the siege with im- 
mense vigour. The result was that Caen fell into 
his hands before any effort was made in Paris to 
despatch reinforcements to the beleaguered garrison. 
Being determined to make of Caen an English city,- 
like Calais and Harfleur, Henry drove out to starve 
twenty-five thousand wretched beings from this capital 
of Lower Normandy. According to his usual custom 

9 



144 The France of Joan of Arc M 

upon taking a Norman city, a few heads of the 
principal burghers were cut off by Henry for /ese- 
majestd in resisting their Sovereign, but the Hves 
of the remainder were spared, and the honour of 
women respected. 

Having captured also Bayeux, Alengon, and 
Falaise, and while gradually extending his conquests, 
the " Duke of Normandy " acted with considerable 
wisdom in establishing an orderly and settled govern- 
ment wherever his army were supreme. While pun- 
ishing those who resisted him, he protected all who 
yielded to his authority ; those among the priesthood, 
for instance, who chose to remain in their benefices, 
and landowners, settled upon their estates, who ac- 
knowledged him as their Sovereign. 

So secure did the King of England feel of un- 
interruption in his operations, owing to his secret 
understanding with Jean Sans Peur, that he proceeded 
to break up his army into various small detachments, 
and to invest three or four places at the same time. 

While Henry was thus placidly continuing his 
successful military promenade through Normandy, 
the Due de Bourgogne, quite regardless of the pre- 
sence of the invader in the country of which he 
belonged to the Blood Royal, was only occupied with 
the Comte d'Armagnac, and how to procure his fall. 

That it could not be very far off was apparent 
from the straits to which the Comte Bernard had 
been reduced owing to the success of his opponent's 
edicts against paying the taxes. While in Paris he 
remained as proud and fierce as ever, the situation 
of the Constable was really deplorable. From want 
of money wherewith to pay them, dArmagnac was 



The Massacres of the Armagnacs 145 

daily losing more of his Gascons, who left the city 
by degrees. In his need he laid violent hands upon 
the sacred church vessels, and melted them down. 
It is true that, as when he had seized the Queen's 
plate at Saint-Denis, the Comte declared this to be 
but a loan. He even made a settlement of certain 
State revenues wherewith new chalices and candle- 
sticks would be eventually procured for the churches 
and abbeys. Nevertheless, the worthy Religieux de 
Saint-Denis states that the monks of his abbey were 
furious, and declared that this annexation of the 
church goods should be recorded in their annals as 
the greatest blot on the reign of Charles VI. 

The bourgeoisie of Paris, wearied out with being 
forced to perform continuous military duties, now 
hated the Comte d'Armagnac as much as it feared 
him. The Church and the University hated him also. 
If any extra reason for this hatred on the part of 
the University were needed, it was to be found in 
the fact that this upholder of the cause of the late 
Due Louis d'0rl6ans was an upholder also of that 
Prince's favourite Pope, Benedict XIII., whom the 
University had declared schismatic. Armagnac now 
it was whom they called schismatic — a schismatic 
brigand, and a Gascon to boot, which was almost as 
great a crime in the eyes of an inhabitant of northern 
France as being an infidel follower of Mohammed. 

Meanwhile the Parisians were longing for peace 
with the Burgundians. ''Let there be peace!" was 
their daily cry. It was not, however, that of King 
Charles VI. When, in one of his lucid intervals, 
he was informed that the reason of the scarcity of 
provisions in Paris was that the city was blockaded 



146 The France of Joan of Arc 

by the people of Jean Sans Peur, he exclaimed testily : 
** Why don't you drive those rascals away ? " 

At length even the King and the young Dauphin 
v^rere willing to listen to the cries of the people, and 
patch up a reconciliation. Not the Constable! He 
would not hear of such a thing, for well did that 
fierce man realise that what might mean peace to all 
others would mean death or destruction to him. He 
had but three thousand Gascons left. What could they 
do if the gates were opened to the army of Burgundy? 

Nevertheless, this is what came to pass — by 
treachery ! 

A certain young man, named Leclerc, was the 
son of the official whose duty it was to keep the 
keys of the Gate Saint-Germain. Associating some 
other rascals of bad character with himself, Leclerc 
robbed his father of the keys, and one night admitted 
eight hundred Burgundian Knights under the command 
of a powerful Seigneur, the Sire de 1' Isle- Adam. 
Some of the people instantly joined Isle-Adam, who 
by surprise obtained possession of the King, when 
the Dauphin fled to the Bastille. There was subse- 
quently a fierce combat in the streets, when the 
Bretons and the Gascons who remained faithful to 
Armagnac were crushed by stones hurled upon them 
from the windows by the people, who joined the 
Burgundians. Isle-Adam remained victorious, and 
the proud Bernard d' Armagnac was, with some of the 
leading men of his party, compelled to hide. They 
were betrayed and imprisoned. 

Now commenced the fete of .the Parisians, who 
pillaged from top to bottom the houses of all of the 
Armagnac faction, while their owners were held for 



The Massacres of the Armagnacs 147 

ransom. The banished butchers, those whose wives 
and daughters had been so ill-treated by the Gascon 
soldiers while being conducted to Orleans, now re- 
turned to Paris. They were gaunt with hunger and 
fierce for vengeance. Nor was their rage modified 
when they beheld the ruined condition of their houses. 
These people crammed the prisons full of the Armag- 
nacs, whom they had just cause to hate, whatever had 
been their own misdeeds in the past. 

This sudden reversal of the Armagnac Government 
and the downfall of the Constable took place at the 
beginning of June 141 8, and meanwhile starvation 
increased in the city, which, moreover, remained in 
a constant state of wild alarm, with the tocsin ringing 
nightly. There were two causes for alarm. One that 
the Armagnacs outside the city might return in force 
and free the prisoners, the other lest the English, who 
had cleverly obtained possession of Pont-de-l'Arche, 
on the Seine between Paris and Rouen, should attack 
the city. 

To avert the former danger, the furious bourgeois 
determined to murder the prisoners. On the night of 
June 12, 141 8, they assembled in their thousands 
and swarmed to all the places of confinement. Then 
ensued a scene similar to that of the September 
massacres of the time of the French Revolution. In 
vain was it that Isle-Adam, with Fosseuse and 
Luxembourg, two other great Burgundian Seigneurs, 
at first endeavoured to restrain their fury. At some 
of the prisons the imprisoned Armagnacs made a 
furious resistance, but all were murdered. At others 
they were called out one by one, and upon reaching 
the gates their throats were cut. 



148 The France of Joan of Arc 

Mad with the lust of blood — again like the 
September massacres — the bourgeois soon forgot to 
discriminate among those whom they killed, but every- 
one was slaughtered, no matter for what cause confined. 
Debtors, Bishops, some of the Presidents of the Parlia- 
ment who had been imprisoned by the opposite faction, 
and various other members of the Magistracy, even of 
the Burgundian party, had their throats cut as ruthlessly 
as though they had been the Constable himself. 
Needless to say that the great Comte Bernard was 
one of the first to meet with a bloody end, and in 
the Palais de Justice for several days his naked corpse 
was the object of the mockery of the crowd. The 
children, meanwhile, played in the streets with the 
stripped corpses of his followers. People in the streets, 
including many women, were murdered also. One 
woman notably, who was about to become a mother, 
was butchered with circumstances of most revolting 
cruelty. Her living child was left lying in the street, 
but the priests refused to baptize it, saying that it was 
an Armagnac, and should die without baptism as it 
deserved to be damned ! 

Between midnight of Saturday, June 12, and the 
morning of Monday, June 14, sixteen hundred persons 
were massacred in the prisons or in the streets of 
Paris. As at the time of the massacre of Saint 
Bartholomew, many a man who wished to get rid 
of his personal enemy falsely designated him as a 
Huguenot, so now it was sufficient for one who had 
a grudge against another to cry "Armagnac!" after 
him, when, rightly or wrongly, his bloody doom 
was certain. 

How terrible, indeed, have been the deeds of the 



The Massacres of the Armagnacs 149 

French race time after time ! What hecatombs of 
dead have littered the streets of the French cities, 
of Paris, and many other towns and villages, from the 
early days of the long-continued slaughter of the help- 
less Albigenses ! 

How merciless those of this nation have repeatedly 
proved to their own compatriots, ever since its first 
component races, with their largely Latin foundation, 
became fused into a nation ! Surely the French must 
hold the record for massacres against all the world! 
Other nations may have had their occasional outbreaks, 
their blind slaughterings of their fellow-countrymen ; 
but, so frequent ? We doubt it. 

L'appdtit vient en mangeant seems to have ever 
been the motto of our Gallic neighbours where whole- 
sale killing was concerned, and this proved to be the 
case now with the populace of Paris. The June 
massacre of the unfortunate Armagnacs will not suffice 
them — they will find some more to slaughter in 
August ! We shall come presently to the next — what 
should it be called ? — ebullition of popular feeling will 
do, since in the case of the Parisians of that, and a 
later day, ebullition and wholesale murder have proved 
to be but synonymous terms ! 

While within the horrid city, in jest, a long white 
strip of skin was cut from the back of the dead Comte 
Bernard, to represent the Armagnac scarf, while too 
the stench of the corpses with which the children were 
playing became insupportable, the living wearers of 
the white Armagnac scarf were enabled to take a little 
revenge on the Parisians. 

They held Melun, up the Seine, in force, and 
starved the city from that side as the English were 



1 50 The France of Joan of Arc 

doing from the other. The Parisians sent for the 
Due de Bourgogne to come and help them. Jean 
Sans Peur came — with the Queen, and the fickle 
crowds were delighted at first. They soon found that 
there was not much cause for their cries of '' Noel au 
bon Due ! " or *' Vive la Reine ! " for these brought no 
food with them — no peace either ! 

The triumph of the Armagnacs outside commenced 
when the plague began within, being brought on by 
the smell of the improperly burled corpses and starva- 
tion in the city. Then they pressed in all the closer, 
and kept the food out more carefully than before, both 
by way of the river and at Montlh^ry from the 
province of Beauce. 

The plague, however, soon spread to the environs 
of Paris also, and then those who might have been 
willing to have brought in food by other routes were 
dead or dying. In Paris there were before long fifty 
thousand dead, and, strange to say, those chiefly con- 
cerned in the recent massacre not only died first, but 
gave themselves up to despair from the moment that 
they were attacked by the scourge. Crying wildly, 
*' We are damned ! " these even refused the consolations 
of religion in their dying moments. 

In the midst of this awful mortality, clerical mem- 
bers of the University began to declaim from the 
pulpit that if everything was thus going wrong it was 
because not enough had been killed — that the work 
of slaughter should be continued. 

These priests abused the leaders of the Burgundian 
party, saying that, doubtless, they intended to allow 
the remaining Armagnac prisoners to go on payment 
of a ransom, and that this must be prevented at all 



The Massacres of the Armagnacs 151 

hazards. The preachers did their evil work only 
too well, and, towards the end of August, 14 18, in 
a time of dreadful heat, the mob armed once more 
for murder. Headed by Capeluche, the executioner 
of Paris, mounted on a white horse, the multitude 
surged to the prison of the Grand Chatelet. Here 
the gaolers armed their prisoners, and encouraged 
them to defend the doors. 

With ladders the assassins mounted to the roofs, 
broke an entrance, and, pouring in, butchered gaolers 
and prisoners together. 

The same butchery then took place at the Petit 
Chdtelet. 

To the Bastille next thronged the bloodthirsty 
thousands, still headed by the mounted executioner. 
The Due de Bourgogne, without any armed escort, 
met them, and begged them to spare the lives of the 
prisoners, of all descriptions, with whom the Bastille 
was crowded. 

In order to gain his point, this great Prince even 
humbled himself so far as to shake hands with the 
hangman. 

Thereupon Capeluche promised, the mob also 
promised, that all that they would do would be to 
transport the prisoners to the prison of the Chatelet. 

Jean Sans Peur was helpless to prevent this ; but 
no sooner had the howling mob removed the prisoners 
than they were met by another howling mob, which 
had made no promises to the Due de Bourgogne, and 
which massacred them all. 

In his rage at having touched the bloodstained 
hand of the executioner, and for nothing, this Prince 
now determined to have his revenge. By cunning 



152 The France of Joan of Arc 

words he contrived to send the armed ruffians off to 
attack the Armagnacs at Montlhdry, a few miles 
to the south of Paris. No sooner were they outside 
than he shut the gates of the city behind them. He 
now had the executioner at his mercy, and was deter- 
mined to make him pay dearly for the honour of 
having grasped the hand of a Prince of the Blood — 
a mighty ruler of many States. Capeluche was seized 
and borne off to the place where he was wont to 
ply his loathly calling. When about to be hanged, 
this hangman showed no white feather but the greatest 
sang-froid. Having carefully explained to his assistant 
how to arrange matters so as to make no bungle, 
the executioner of Paris coolly made his bow to the 
world, and was then hurried into eternity from his 
own scaffold. 



CHAPTER XII 

How Henry V* took Rouen 

1418 — 1419 

The great leader of the Armagnac faction in France 
being murdered, and Charles, Due d'Orldans safely 
bottled up in an English prison, Jean Sans Peur 
remained the definite head of the Government of 
France. 

In this position, it became at length incumbent 
to do something to defend the country against the 
English. No longer was it possible for the Due 
de Bourgogne to shelter himself behind his oppo- 
nents, and say that, if the English were not driven out 
of France, it was all the fault of those wretched 
Armagnacs. His equivocal position as the secret 
ally of Henry V., with his Flanders treaties for 
mutual commercial benefits, became galling in the 
extreme ; the people, now that he had become their 
ruler, as the ruler of the King, began to cry out 
to him for protection from the foreign foe, which, 
gradually ascending the Seine, was placing Paris in 
danger. 

But where Comte Bernard d' Armagnac had found 
himself before the June massacres, there did Jean 
Sans Peur find himself now. With the town to feed, 

153 



1 54 The France of Joan of Arc 

to provision against a possible siege, and with no 
money unless he renewed the taxes which he him- 
self had abolished in order to injure his rival, the 
Burgundian Duke found himself indeed in a fix. 

He had put his head into a noose out of which 
it was impossible to withdraw it ; he could do nothing 
either for war or peace. Should he renew the taxes, 
his popularity would go. 

Even his friends and most ardent supporters, both 
in Rouen and Paris, had become by this time more 
for a determined war of defence against the English 
than for one of extermination against the Armagnacs, 
and, seeing how slow was their beloved leader in 
taking any active steps, began to cry out. They 
said that he was " the slowest of all slow men in 
his labours." 

Much as he felt the invidious light in which he 
was regarded, the Due de Bourgogne still remained 
helpless. His commercial treaties with England pre- 
vented him from summoning his Flemish vassals to 
his aid, while the Armagnac forces held nearly all 
the cities of central France, and thus kept his Bur- 
gundian troops in a constant state of alarm for their 
own safety. 

While in this quandary, Jean, by an effort, con- 
trived to send four thousand horsemen to Rouen, but 
the loss of these men-at-arms, nearly all Burgundian 
gentlemen of noble birth, left him weaker in Paris. 

It may perhaps be wondered at that, when on the 
horns of this dilemma, this ruler of various foreign 
States did not openly declare himself for England, and 
go over bag and baggage to Henry V. The reason 
for not so doing was that he knew, should he adopt 



How Henry V* took Rouen 155 

this open course, that he would lose all of his following 
in France, and a great 'part also of his subjects of 
Burgundy, which country cared nothing for Flanders, 
as it reaped none of the advantages of the Flemish 
trade with England, in which the Due de Bourgogne 
had, however, his share of the profits. 

There is no doubt but that Jean wrote to Henry 
to this effect, and explained to the English King how 
much more advantageous to him was his veiled 
neutrality than his open assistance. There is, 
indeed, in existence a secret treaty by which Jean 
recognised the claim of Henry to the throne of 
France. It is undated, and probably was only signed 
by Jean in his capacity as Comte de Flandre. Its 
existence was suspected at the time, but was not 
actually known, for Henry, clearly understanding that 
he would do wisely to keep it quiet, said nothing 
about it. 

Meanwhile, while reducing the taxes in the great 
part of Normandy which he had turned into an 
English colony, and altogether abolishing the hateful 
duty on salt, Henry pursued the even tenor of his 
way. As he had mapped this out for himself, his 
next objective point was Rouen, in Upper Normandy, 
and to Rouen he accordingly went. 

An indefatigable negotiator, Henry had by various 
treaties prepared for being left undisturbed while 
attacking this most important city on the Seine. He 
made a treaty for the neutrality of Guyenne, he 
renewed an old treaty of truce with Brittany, and he 
made new treaties with Flanders. Last, but not least, 
by his clever method of working upon the feelings of 
his numerous French prisoners in England, he in- 



15^ The France of Joan of Arc 

clined them to write to France in the interests of 
peace, and thus to block the efforts of those of their 
friends who would otherwise have made more violent 
efforts to oppose him in the field. 

In an amicable visit which Henry paid to the 
Due d' Orleans before leaving England, he talked to 
this Prince in a confidential manner, one calculated to 
alarm him for the future of his country should the war 
continue. To the Due de Bourbon he did the same : 
** Beau cousin, I am returning to the war, and this 
time I shall spare nothing ; yes, this time France will 
have to pay the piper" ; or '* Beau cousin, soon I am 
going to Paris. It is a great pity, for they are a brave 
people ; but, you see, they are so terribly divided that 
they can do nothing." 

The result of these confidential chats with the 
various French prisoners was so to discourage them 
all that they begged and obtained leave to send the 
Due de Bourbon to Paris, to represent them with the 
King of France, to implore him to hurry up and make 
peace on Henry's own conditions. To say, further, 
that if peace were not made, then would they re- 
nounce their country as Frenchmen, and hold their 
fiefs there in future as vassals under the English 
Crown. 

In addition to his other treaties, Henry, at her 
own request, willingly accorded one of neutrality, for 
her separate provinces of Anjou, Provence, and Maine, 
to Yolande, the recently widowed Duchesse d'Anjou 
(Queen of Sicily). This Yolande was a Spanish 
Princess, the daughter of King John I. of Aragon. 
She was a woman of considerable head, tact, and 
foresight, as she proved later in the efforts she made 



How Henry V* took Rouen 157 

for the aggrandisement of her House. By the clever 
marriage which she made of her second son Rene she 
obtained for him the great independent Duchy of 
Lorraine. She made her daughter Marie the wife 
of Charles VII. of France, while her granddaughter 
Marguerite became the Queen of Henry VI. of 
England. 

When this politic woman sent to Henry V. to ask 
him for neutrality, he met her half-way. Nothing, 
he said to the Queen of Sicily, would give him greater 
pleasure than to avoid the effusion of Christian blood 
in the three French provinces left to her by her much- 
regretted husband. 

The fifteen-year-old Dauphin now stood in France 
for the head of the Orleans or Armagnac party. This 
indeed was but natural, considering that the late 
Louis d'0rl6ans had been, if not, as all supposed, his 
father, certainly the uncle of the Dauphin Charles. 

To the Dauphin, as Armagnac, Henry pretended 
to turn a willing ear when he received representations 
for peace, and equally to Jean Sans Peur, as Burgun- 
dian, he impartially lent his attention. All the time 
he was preparing to besiege Rouen, and, as a pre- 
paratory measure, imported some eight thousand 
famishing Irish to cat up the country round about 
the city. Having loosed these starving raggamufifins 
in Normandy, he told them to procure their own 
living. They were unarmed, and wandered about, 
riding on small ponies or on cows, and terrified the 
inhabitants by becoming kidnappers of children, whom 
they held for ransom. 

Monstrelet says of this army of Irish scaramouches : 
** One of their feet was shod ahd the other naked, and 



158 The France of Joan of Arc 

they were without breeches. They stole little children 
from the cradle, and rode off on cows carrying the said 
children." 

Rouen, which contained some sixty thousand 
souls, was very strongly held by the provincial militia 
and the four thousand cavaliers sent by the Due de 
Bourgogne. The difficulty would be how to nourish 
the inhabitants, especially as Henry held Pont de 
I'Arche above on the Seine, and Harfleur below. 

The English King, afraid of no exterior attack, 
quietly divided up his army into seven or eight large 
detachments, stationed at different points round the 
city. These he connected with one another by 
trenches and parapets, to protect from artillery-fire. 
With military precautions in advance of his time, he 
protected the reverse of these trenches with a strong 
thorny fence, or '' zariba," similar to those used in the 
Soudanese wars of modern days. His brothers, 
Thomas, Duke of Clarence, and Humphrey, Duke of 
Gloucester, commanded the forces which watched two 
of the city gateSc He had also under his command 
the Earl of Warwick, Dorset, the High Admiral of 
England, and other great lords. 

The story of the siege of Rouen is that of one of 
the most obstinate in history. In spite of the hunger 
by which the defenders were attacked at the end of 
the first month of the investment, the place held out 
for seven long months, during which furious counter- 
attacks were continually delivered on the English lines. 
The boldest spirit of the defence was the head of the 
crossbow-men, Alain Blanchart by name, and his 
efforts were well seconded by the Canon Delivet and 
other priests, who animated the courage of the inhabi- 





JEAN POTON, SEIGNEUR DE XAINTRAILI.ES. MARECHAL DE FRANCE, 



159 



How Henry V. took Rouen i6i 

tants of Rouen, while pronouncing excommunication 
against the impious invader. 

The siege continued through the whole of the 
winter of 141 8 — 14 19, and during this prolonged 
period embassies from the Dauphin and Jean Sans 
Peur arrived in the English camp to treat for peace. 
So long as no relieving force also arrived, Henry was 
perfectly ready to play with these Ambassadors from 
the rival parties and to keep each waiting as long as 
possible. He pretended to listen to the offers made 
to him of large cessions of territory by each of the 
rival parties in turn. These offers were amusing ; for 
while Bourgogne expressed himself as willing to give 
Henry about three quarters of the French King's 
dominions in France, the Dauphin calmly offered 
about the half of those belonging to Jean Sans Peur, 
notably all of Flanders and Artois. 

In the end Henry laughed at each set of Am- 
bassadors. He told those from the Dauphin that he 
held his master's private letters to the Due de Bour- 
gogne, which proved his insincerity and connivance 
with his rival. To the Envoys of Jean Sans Peur he 
remarked tersely : *' The King is a fool, the Dauphin 
a minor, and the Due de Bourgogne not in a position 
to make any offers at all." Thereupon he sent them 
about their business, and continued the playful habit 
of hanging the prisoners that he had taken outside the 
walls of Rouen, to strike terror into the hearts of the 
stubborn inhabitants. 

As winter advanced, famine obtained a still more 

terrible grip upon those within the doomed city. Then, 

in order to have the fewer useless mouths to feed, all the 

old men, women, and children were thrust out from 

10 



1 62 The France of Joan of Arc 

the city gates. By this time nearly all the horses, cats, 
and dogs had been eaten ; a rat was fetching a large 
price, and even a mouse was worth its weight in silver. 
The difficulty was, however, to catch these small 
animals, there being no articles of food available for 
bait. Anything which, under ordinary circumstances, 
would have been thrown out on the dust-heap was now 
carefully preserved, and human beings fought with one 
another like wild animals over the smallest piece of 
carrion. 

When the women and children were turned out of 
Rouen, it was hoped that the English would charitably 
receive and feed them. The charity of Henry V. 
consisted, however, in having the whole mass of 
starving old age, femininity and childhood thrust 
back into the dry ditch outside the walls. 

There, feeding on such grass and weeds as they 
could find, these twelve thousand miserable beings 
lived and died ; their piteous appeals for help, for 
mercy, for food, disregarded alike by their husbands, 
fathers, brothers, sons, within the city and the English 
soldiery without. On Christmas Day, however, the 
English priests went down and fed all with bread. 

When a child was born in the ditch — and there were 
many such cases — the priests of Rouen lowered down 
a basket, hauled up the infant, baptized it, and then 
let it down again, to starve upon its starving mother's 
withered breast. And yet, even to preserve the lives 
of their loved ones, the Rouennais refused to yield, 
still kept up their dogged and fierce resistance. On 
two occasions they managed to send monks out as 
messengers to Charles VI., to beg for help. 

One of these pronounced bitter curses upon the 



How Henry V. took Rouen 163 

King and Jean Sans Peur, telling them that, if they 
did not at once send aid, every man of Rouen who 
might survive would do his utmost to destroy them 
and all their race. 

At length the Due de Bourgogne made a show of 
taking the King with him to relieve Rouen. At the 
Abbey of Saint-Denis the mockery was enacted of 
presenting the King with the Oriflamme — the sacred 
banner of France. With the Oriflamme proudly 
waving before him, the King and his forces moved 
a little way — to Pontoise — and there halted. Some 
days later a last despairing messenger arrived, to 
say that fifty thousand were already dead of famine 
in and around Rouen. Jean Sans Peur seemed 
greatly grieved at this sad news. He sent back 
the messenger, with word that he was coming at 
once with succour. No sooner had he departed than 
the Due de Bourgogne marched off the King and 
his army in the opposite direction to that of Rouen ! 

The end came, as it was bound to come. When 
the desperate inhabitants of Rouen threatened to blow 
down their walls and perish in a headlong charge upon 
the English, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to save 
life on both sides, went in and offered terms. These 
were life to all except five, who would be hanged for 
treason to their legitimate Sovereign. 

The city of Rouen yielded on these terms, in 
January 141 9, when of the five victims four, being 
rich, bought their lives for large sums. The noble 
Alain Blanchart could not, or was not allowed to, buy 
himself off— he died for all ; and thus was the English 
Sovereignty vindicated. The whole of the inhabitants 
at Rouen were now confined as prisoners in the city 



164 The France of Joan of Arc 

until, In two payments, they contrived to hand over 
the immense war indemnity of three hundred thousand 
golden crowns. 

Any person who wished to go out was, however, 
allowed to do so, on purchasing from the officers of 
the guards at the various gates a ticket, for which he 
had to pay a very large price. This ingenious plan 
for raising money was found to be so productive that 
the English proceeded to employ it at the gates of all 
the Norman cities which had fallen into their hands. 
When Rouen had paid its immense fine, the magnani- 
mous Henry announced that he restored to the city all 
the ancient privileges that it had enjoyed ** before the 
usurpation of Philippe de Valois." This was Philippe 
known as Philippe VI. of France, and the first of the 
Valois Kings. 

He was the son of Charles, Comte de Valois (who 
was the brother of Philippe IV.), and would not have 
been the legal heir to the Crown in any country where 
the Salic law had not prevailed. But for this law, 
after the death of three sons of Philippe IV., all of 
whom reigned, his daughter Isabelle, who married 
Edward II. of England and was the ancestress of 
Henry V., might have had a claim to the Crown. 
Even then it would not have been a good claim, 
as the eldest brother of this Isabelle (Louis X.) left a 
daughter Jeanne, who married the King of Navarre, 
and thus Jeanne's claim and that of her descendants 
would have been prior to Isabelle's claim and that of 
her descendants. 

From the above explanation it will be seen how 
very shadowy was the claim of Henry V. of England 
to the Monarchy of France. Setting aside the cruelty, 



How Henry V. took Rouen 165 

also, how eminently unfair it was of him to hang, 
for high treason, those who did not acknowledge him 
as their Sovereign as Duke of Normandy ! This 
Duchy became vested in the French Crown upon its 
capture in 1203 by Philippe II. from King John 
of England ; and it was at times granted as an 
appanage to their sons by the French Kings. Only 
by his shadowy claim through Isabelle could Henry V. 
assert the claim to Normandy. It was one that was 
certainly too remote to justify him in butchering pri- 
soners taken in lawful war against an invader, while 
declaring that they were guilty of lese-majestd. 

The ways of Henry V. were, however, but the 
ways of his times, and it must be remembered that if 
he was not the legitimate heir, by the strict law of 
primogeniture, to the Crown of France or Normandy, 
neither was he to the Crown of England. The rule 
of the day was that he who had the might to enforce 
his pretensions had the right to make them, and it 
was by following this rule that Henry V. became 
practically King of France. 



CHAPTER XIII 

The Dauphin murders Jean Sans Peur 

1419 

After his triumph at Rouen, Henry's already 
ambitious views became still further enlarged. Not 
content with the project of obtaining the Crown of 
France for himself, he sought the aggrandisement 
of his House in other parts of Europe. A good plan 
for obtaining a footing in the German Empire seemed 
to him the acquisition of the Duchy of Lorraine. He 
accordingly made proposals for the marriage of his 
brother John, Duke of Bedford, with Isabelle, the 
only daughter and heiress of Duke Charles I. of 
Lorraine, Isabelle's mother being a daughter of the 
Emperor Robert. By this scheme there seemed a 
fair chance of Bedford eventually succeeding to the 
throne of the Holy Roman Empire, and the more so 
as Henry had already got several of the Archbishop- 
Princes, who were Electors of the Empire, directly 
under his thumb, and willing to pay him homage. 

In Italy he also saw an opening, and proposed 
to Joanna II., the childless Queen of Naples, that she 
should adopt his young brother Humphrey, Duke of 
Gloucester, as her heir, and in the meantime hand him 

over the Duchy of Calabria. This Henry proposed 

166 



The Dauphin murders Jean Sans Peur 167 

to use as a base for a descent upon Syria and 
Jerusalem, of which he meditated the conquest. 

As Alfonso v., King of Aragon, was also seeking 
to be adopted by Joanna, this ambitious scheme of 
Henry brought him into collision with Spain, and 
ships from both the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile 
began to threaten his possessions in Guyenne, notably 
the town of Bayonne, close to the Spanish frontier. 
A plan was even set on foot by which forty Castilian 
ships should bring Scotch troops from Scotland, and 
French troops of the Dauphin's (Armagnac) party 
from Belle Isle. Combined with the Aragonese, these 
ships and troops would besiege Bayonne. This com- 
bination of those maritime powers, Castile and Aragon 
with Scotland and France, would seem to put even 
England in peril. 

Henry, however, disregarded all these dangers, 
and gaily went on his way. He held his head higher 
than ever, even snapping his fingers at his supposed 
foe, but secret ally, the Due de Bourgogne. 

We can but admire the courage and haughty spirit 
of this second of the Lancastrian Kings, by which his 
name became as much feared throughout Europe as, 
by his administrative talents, it became respected. 

Jean Sans Peur soon came to seek an interview 
with Henry, and even brought with him, as a bait, 
the young Princess Catherine, daughter of Charles VI. 
He wished the King of England to have a look at 
this young girl and see, as she possessed already 
personal charms, if he thought her sufficiently attractive 
to marry. At the same time, Bourgogne offered to 
yield all of Guyenne and Normandy to the Englishman. 

Henry expressed his satisfaction with the Princess 



1 68 The France of Joan of Arc 

who was so shamefully dragged to the meeting to be 
offered in barter, but not with the terms. He said : 
*' I will have Brittany also, as the dependence of 
Normandy. I will have likewise Maine, Anjou, and 
Touraine " — and this notwithstanding his recent treaty 
with the Queen of Sicily, to whom Maine and Anjou 
belonged ! He really had not the slightest intention 
of treating seriously, as he intended to have the whole 
of France for his portion. Finally he closed the 
meeting by insulting Jean Sans Peur, with the arrogant 
remark : ** Beau cousin, we would have you under- 
stand this clearly : we will have the daughter of your 
King, and all the rest. Otherwise we will put both 
him and you straight out of this Kingdom ! " 

With this flea in his ear, and his King's daughter, 
Jean was compelled to take his leave, and upon his 
crestfallen return to Paris he found many influences at 
work to patch up the great quarrel which still kept 
the Kingdom divided. 

The most successful negotiator was the immoral 
Queen Isabeau, and she worked upon Jean Sans 
Peur through another immoral but clever woman, 
whom she contrived to give him as a mistress. This 
was the bright, spirituelle, graceful, and sensitive 
young lady known as the Dame de Giac. That 
diplomatic chronicler, the Monk of Saint-Denis, goes 
so far as to call her the '* respectable " Dame de Giac. 
He likewise calls her *' prudent " ! 

Of her prudence her husband, the Sire de Giac, 
soon experienced the results. He is said, however, 
merely to have ascribed to the Devil — to whom he 
had vowed his right hand — the extraordinary good 
fortune which attended him. In the end, neither the 



The Dauphin murders Jean Sans Peur 169 

young and lively lady, nor her too lucky husband 
had much to boast of in the way of good fortune. 
The lady was first poisoned by her husband, and then 
compelled to gallop on a horse behind him for several 
leagues, until she died ! The Sire de Giac was put to 
death, and his last prayer before being executed was 
that his hand should be first cut off, lest Satan should 
grab hold of it and drag his whole body to perdition 
after the hand. 

In the meantime, before these tragic events, 
Madame de Giac wound herself around the Due de 
Bourgogne like a cunning little serpent, and by her 
clever wiles won him to the required purpose. He 
became so enamoured of her charms that she had 
only to ask for him to comply. The result of her 
blandishments become apparent in the middle of July 
14 1 9. Then, upon the Bridge of Pouilly, was to be 
seen another of the periodical peace-makings between 
Armagnac and Burgundian. This time it was evi- 
dently intended to be sincere and durable. 

In the midst of the old followers of the Due Louis 
d'Orl^ans, whom, after taking the Communion with 
him, he had slain, was to be seen the powerful Due de 
Bourgogne. There also were present the relations 
of those whose throats he had allowed to be cut in the 
Paris massacres. There likewise were assembled the 
kinsmen of those prisoners in England whom he had 
refused to assist at Agincourt. The Dauphin Charles 
(son of the murdered Prince ?) headed all of these, and 
to him the proud Burgundian could not show himself 
too humble. Of his own accord, he went on his knee 
to his young cousin, and expressed his devotion — his 
never-ending friendship. An offensive and defensive 



1 70 The France of Joan of Arc 

treaty was signed between these long-since-contending 
parties, these bitter opponents, in whose hearts for 
long past had rankled every evil passion, whose 
actions had been characterised by nought but envy, 
hatred, treachery, and deceit. 

For how long could such a treaty of friendship 
endure ? At all events, this marvellous reconciliation 
was not lost upon King Henry. Finding united the 
two great parties in whose division had lain his 
strength, he thought that the time had come for him 
to play the lover to the fresh young beauty who had 
so recently been brought to him for inspection, as a 
young slave-girl to the slave-market. 

He had then said that he intended to have her, 
coute qui coute, but had not thought it worth his 
while to pay her any of those little attentions by which 
young feminine hearts may be won. He now re- 
paired his negligence, by sending to the Princess, who 
was not even yet his fiancee, some magnificent 
presents. The Monk of Saint-Denis states that the 
jewels remitted to the humiliated maiden from the 
enemy of her country were worth at the very least a 
hundred thousand golden crowns. 

The unfortunate part of the business, for the young 
Princess, was that the Dauphin caused them to be 
intercepted en route, as he thought that they would be 
more useful to himself It is therefore doubtful if the 
young girl ever obtained any portion of the splendid 
gift, which had been intended for such a pleasant 
surprise and an adornment for her youthful charms. 

Henry followed this up by another surprise. At 
Pontoise, on the river Oise, not far from Paris, was a 
large Burgundian detachment in garrison. Before the 



The Dauphin murders Jean Sans Peur 171 

end of that same month of July the English unex- 
pectedly fell upon this place, routed with slaughter the 
forces of Jean Sans Peur, and captured it. The terror- 
stricken inhabitants of Pontoise came flying pell-mell 
into Paris, where the consternation was increased by 
the Due de Bourgogne at once leaving the city in the 
lurch, and making off, with the King, the Queen, the 
Dauphin, and Madame de Giac, to the town of Troyes. 
As commandant of the city of Paris, the Due left his 
fifteen-year-old nephew, the Comte de Saint-Pol, but 
only a few troops. 

So strange were the politics of that day, as 
arranged between England and the Due de Bourgogne, 
that, the very day before the surprise of Pontoise, the 
Duke of Bedford, who was acting as Regent in 
England, had signed a renewed treaty of truce between 
England and Flanders (July 28, 1419). 

It is hardly to be wondered at if, when the news 
of the new treaty between the English King and Jean 
Sans Peur, Comte de Flandre, came to light the 
Dauphin and his followers cried out that they were 
being betrayed. Not only these but the deserted 
Parisians declared that the Due and the English King 
understood one another only too well. The frightened 
bourgeois of Paris were able to make this assertion 
with all the more sincerity when, on August 9, the 
first of the English soldiers were seen skirmishing up 
to the very gates of the capital. 

Needless to say that all the old Orleanist hate for 
Burgundy surged up anew, that the fickle people of 
Paris became once more all for the Dauphin and for 
Armagnac. They became all the more for the 
Dauphin Charles as his combination with Castile and 



172 The France of Joan of Arc 

Aragon met with some success at this moment, some 
Spanish ships defeating an English fleet. BeHeving 
that, with the expected Scotch assistance, Henry- 
would soon be done for, the Orleanists and the city 
hoped for speedy relief from the island invaders, and, 
in the meantime, determined to purge themselves from 
the crime of having shaken hands with Burgundy. 

The sixteen-year-old Dauphin, Charles, was sur- 
rounded by wild and unprincipled counsellors — Breton 
gentlemen who made their living by the sword, bold 
Armagnac nobles from Gascony, who for ten years 
past had been little better than brigands, were mixed 
up with various great civil functionaries, such as his 
Chancellor, Magon by name, and one Louvet, who 
was the President of the Parliament of Provence. 
These high magistrates were always only too ready to 
justify any deed of bloodshed committed by the Royal 
authority, with the plea that it was but the punishment 
for treason. To their unprincipled advice must be 
attributed the foolish and impolitic crime which the 
Dauphin was now about to commit. 

The Dauphin sent to Jean Sans Peur, who was 
encamped at some little distance with the King, and 
surrounded by his great nobles and retainers, and 
requested him to come and meet him in a personal 
interview to be held at a place called Montereau. 

Here there was a long bridge across the river Seine, 
and it was crooked and twisting, built of wood. Over 
this the Dauphin's people built a roof, forming a sort 
of gallery of the bridge, in the centre of which was 
the place of rendezvous. The retainers of the Due de 
Bourgogne smelt a rat, and endeavoured to persuade 
him to give the bridge a wide berth, especially as it 



The Dauphin murders Jean Sans Peur 173 

had not, as was usual at meetings between different 
parties, had a barrier fixed across the middle. The 
little siren, Madame de Giac, was, however, a vile 
traitress. She persuaded her Princely paramour that 
he would have nothing to fear, and induced him to go 
and meet the Dauphin, by whom her treachery had 
evidently been bought. 

Deceived by the words of this woman who had 
become so much to him, when, on September 10, 
141 9, one of the Dauphin's leading followers, named 
Tanneguy Duchatel, came to fetch him, Jean acted 
up to his surname, and accompanied him ** without 
fear." 

He slapped Tanneguy on the back, and said : 
** Here is the man in whom I trust ! " 

On the way to the bridge Tanneguy Duchatel 
told the Due that he was late, that the Dauphin had 
been waiting a long time, and thus induced him to 
hurry on, leaving his followers behind. He had only 
with him, on reaching the bridge, the Sire de Navailles, 
whose brother, the famous Captal de Buch, was in 
the English service. It was this Captal de Buch who 
had indeed headed the troops which had recently 
taken Pontoise. He belonged to the great family of 
the Comtes de Foix. When the Due and Navailles 
reached the centre of the bridge, the Dauphin's Knights 
spoke rudely, saying : *' Hurry up Monseigneur ! You 
have taken your time about coming." The Due de 
Bourgogne replied in the same tone, saying that the 
Dauphin seemed to be in no hurry to repair the evils 
that existed in France, and further that the Dauphin 
should accompany him to the King, who should hear 
what there was to be said. 



174 The France of Joan of Arc 

There were but few more words when, according 
to one account, that hot-headed member of the House 
of Foix, Navailles, laid his hand on the Dauphin's 
arm, saying that he should come to the King, whether 
he chose or no. 

This action proved the signal for the murder, 
which had been premeditated ; some of those about the 
Dauphin fell upon Jean Sans Peur and Navailles and 
butchered them both. One of those who subsequently 
boasted of his share in the crime was the well-known 
soldier Le Bouteiller. This Knight declared that, 
while striking, he said to the Due: "You cut off the 
wrist of my master, the Due d'OrMans, and now I will 
cut off yours." It will be remembered that Louis 
d' Orleans had been hacked to pieces at the time of 
his assassination. His hand and wrist had subsequently 
been picked up at some distance from his arm. 

Tanneguy Duchatel, who had led Jean Sans Peur 
into the trap, subsequently asserted that he had no 
personal share in the actual murder by which Louis 
d'Orleans was avenged. Of the guilty participation 
of Madame de Giac in the crime there is apparently, 
however, no doubt, as immediately after its perpetration 
she fled and joined the Dauphin. Unhappy woman ! 
her fate was more terrible than that of the man whom 
she betrayed. 

There had recently been no man more unpopular 
in France than the Due de Bourgogne, but, as the 
Dauphin found to his sorrow and amazement, no sooner 
was he dead than he became a popular hero. Now 
every one was weeping and wailing for *'le bon Due," 
so foully done to death, and the Burgundian party 
became greatly reinforced. The Comte de Charolais, 



The Dauphin murders Jean Sans Peur 175 

the eldest son of Jean Sans Peur, now succeeded him 
as ruler of all his possessions and head of the party. 
This Prince became known as Philippe le Bon — 
Philip the Good — although in what particular line 
lay his goodness it would be hard to say. It 
could certainly not have been on account of his 
moral character that Philippe earned this flattering 
sobriquet. Of that we can best judge from the fact 
that, in addition to his three legitimate wives, by one 
of whom he was the father of Charles the Bold, he 
openly acknowledged twenty-four mistresses. To the 
sixteen bastards whom Philippe had by these two 
dozen ladies he was certainly *' good,'* as the archives 
of Burgundy are full of his official acts and deeds 
relating to the establishments and nurses of the mothers 
and the generous pensions accorded to the bastards. 
As in the case of Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans, this 
term carried no reproach with it and was commonly 
used. 



CHAPTER XIV 

The Greatnebb of Henry V 

1420 — 1422 

We have now arrived at perhaps the most interesting 

crisis which ever occurred in the affairs of France. 

The murder of Jean Sans Peur had thrown the country 

into the arms of England—its results were to make 

of it an English State, ruled by an English King. 

Whereas it had taken Henry several years of 

determined and bloody warfare to reduce the Duchy 

of Normandy to his subjection, that one day of the 

assassination at the Bridge of Montereau gave over 

into his hands all the rest of the Kingdom. Paris 

was dying of hunger by slow degrees, Philippe le Bon, 

the new ruler of the Duchy of Burgundy and its 

dependent States, had a great crime to avenge — his 

father's death. The shame implied by calling in the 

foreigner to alleviate the distress of France would be 

concealed under shape of an appeal for assistance in 

obtaining vengeance for a terrible crime. Why, then, 

should not the Due de Bourgogne, a younger off-shoot 

of the Royal line of France, at the same time serve his 

own interests, and take his opportunity of abasing the 

elder line, by calling in a King, himself the descendant 

of a younger branch, to his aid ? 

176 




STATUE OF JOAN OF ARC BY V. DUBOIS. 



177 



The Greatness of Henry V 179 

Would not, moreover, a King whose principal 
interests lay on the other side of the Channel be more 
than likely to leave the greater part of the management 
of France in the hands of the Due de Bourgogne ? 

Arguing thus, the Due Philippe, who had still the 
command of Paris, had no difficulty in getting the 
approval of the Parisians when he suggested the ad- 
visability of at once sending for the English King. 
In the name of the City, the Clergy, and the Commune, 
he despatched his juvenile relative, the Comte de 
Saint-Pol, to Henry V. He was received with the 
greatest courtesy, Henry saying that all that he re- 
quired was to maintain the independent possession 
of what he had conquered and the Princess Catherine 
for his bride. He pointed out that he was of the 
same blood as the French Kings, and vowed to defend 
the kingdom for Charles VI. 

In spite of the apparent modesty of these demands, 
Henry sent his Ambassadors to the new Due de 
Bourgogne, asserting his right to the throne of France, 
which right was formally recognised by Philippe on 
December 2, 1419. 

Almost directly afterwards, in the beginning of 
1420, the Treaty of Troyes, signed between Charles 
VI. and Henry, practically delivered the Monarchy of 
France into the hands of this latter, while at the same 
time it proscribed and disinherited the Dauphin 
Charles. After according to Henry his daughter's 
hand and the succession to the kingdom, Charles VI. 
declared in this treaty : *' It is granted that immediately 
after our death the Crown and the Kingdom of France 
shall remain and perpetually belong to our said son, 
the King Henry and his heirs." It went on to say 
II 



i8o The France of Joan of Arc 

that during the life-time of Charles the government of 
the Kingdom was vested in Henry, in every possible 
respect, as Regent ; further that, on account of his 
horrible crimes, neither King Charles himself nor 
'* our said son the King, nor our very dear son 
Philippe, Due de Bourgogne, shall in any way what- 
ever treat for peace or concord with the soi-disant 
Dauphin de Viennois, Charles." 

The title of " Dauphin de Viennois," it may be as 
well to mention, was originally that of a Prince of 
Vienne, in the south of France, who bore a Dolphin 
as his crest. He left his title, with his dominions, in 
1349 to Philippe VI., the first Valois King of France, 
who transferred the title to his eldest son. From that 
time until the year 1830 the eldest son of France was 
always known as the Dauphin, just as, ever since 
Edward I. conquered and killed the Welsh Prince 
Llewelyn in 1282, the eldest sons of England have 
been known by the title of '* Prince of Wales." 

The Queen Isabeau agreed to this treaty, by which 
her daughter was handed over to the conqueror and 
her son Charles branded as illegitimate. In return for 
her compliance, she was accorded a large annual 
pension, to be levied on the city of Troyes. 

The young Princess was handed over to the 
triumphant English King in June 1420 ; but, having 
satisfied his ambition, Henry showed so little interest 
in the youthful Catherine's charms that he left her on 
the morning after his nuptials. 

A tournament had been arranged In celebration of 
the marriage, when Henry announced to King Charles 
and the nobles of the Court that he was going off at 
once to lay siege to the city of Sens, but that all could 



The Greatness of Henry V i8i 

follow him there, and then the jousting could be 
carried out by those who wished to do so. Having 
taken Sens, Henry found himself unable to reduce 
the Armagnacs in the Chateau of Montereau, when it 
became evident that the fact of having so recently 
espoused a young and charming bride had by no 
means tended to render him soft-hearted. Monstrelet 
states : ** At the said place the King of England 
caused a gallows to be erected, upon which the said 
prisoners were all hanged in sight of the castle." 

The subsequent siege of Melun was a very lengthy 
and troublesome affair, as the Armagnacs, under the 
bold leader Barbazan, fought with a determination 
similar to that of the inhabitants of Rouen. They had 
no intention whatever of acknowledging the supremacy 
in France of a foreign King, whom the adhesion of 
the Burgundian party had raised so absolutely to the 
throne that he even employed the French King's seals 
as Regent. 

The siege of Melun was remarkable from the fact 
that the fighting was carried on both above and below 
ground, no man exposing himself more to danger than 
the courageous English King. Even at that early 
date, the engineers of Henry constructed mines to 
blow up the walls. The defenders were no less adroit, 
and made counter-mines, and in these underground 
tunnels attackers and defenders met and savagely tore 
one another to pieces, like wild animals, in the bowels 
of the earth. Outside the walls, and close up to the 
walls, numerous fierce encounters daily took place, but 
still the bold Barbazan and his Gascons and Scotsmen 
defied the English might. Henry now thought it 
time to play the good Frenchman. He sent repre- 



1 82 The France of Joan of Arc 

sentations to the inhabitants that he was the son-in- 
law and best friend of Charles VI. ; he even brought 
his young wife, and caused her to use her influence. 
The only result was that Barbazan and the people of 
Melun smiled derisively. In the end starvation, as 
usual, did its work. When the famine-stricken town 
of Melun at length was compelled to yield, Henry 
was more cruel than usual. Not only did he cause 
the usual batch of prominent bourgeois to be hanged 
for treason, but he caused every Scotsman found in 
the place to be put to the sword. 

While this siege had been going on, Paris, which 
was some forty miles lower down the Seine, had 
been handed over to Henry's troops by the Bur- 
gundian garrison. 

The real King of France, with Charles VI. to one 
side of him and the Due de Bourgogne on the other, 
Henry proudly made his official entry into the capital 
in the month of December 1420. Behind the King 
rode his brothers of Bedford and Clarence, the Duke 
of Exeter, the Earl of Warwick, and all the chivalry 
of England. With all their banners displayed, the 
English Knights made a gallant show as they thus 
took possession of their new capital, established them- 
selves as the lords of France no less than the lords of 
England. The personal banner of Henry V. bore 
the modest device of a fox's brush. Upon his entry 
to Rouen, it had been the veritable tail of a fox, 
attached as a pennon to a lance, which he had em- 
ployed. With regard to his use of this device, 
Monstrelet shrewdly remarks : '' En quoi aucuns sages 
notoient moult de choses " — ** In which the wise noted 
many things." These ** many things " doubtless were 



The Greatness of Henry V 183 

that Henry was now hunting down the Frenchman as 
formerly he had hunted the fox. 

The English King received a remarkably warm 
welcome in Paris, where he was looked upon in the 
light of a personal friend, come to relieve the city 
from starvation and from the alternate ravages and 
murders of Armagnac and Burgundian. He im- 
mediately acted as Monarch, and, having assembled 
the Estates of the kingdom, caused these notables to 
ratify the Treaty of Troyes, by which France became 
his property and that of his heirs, upon the death of 
the imbecile Charles VI. 

He had established himself in the Royal residence 
of the Louvre, while Charles VI. retired to his Hotel 
de Saint-Paul. A solemn scene was witnessed in this 
last-named palace when, with the two Kings Henry 
and Charles sitting side by side on the same throne, 
an official appeal for justice was made '' for the piteous 
death of the late Due Jean de Bourgogne." 

The spokesman for the Due Philippe and his 
mother demanded that the soi-disant Dauphin, Tanne- 
guy Duchatel, and others of the assassins of Jean Sans 
Peur, should be dragged disgracefully round the city 
in tumbrils, torch in hand, to make the amende honor- 
able, Charles VI. supported this demand, and like- 
wise the University of Paris. 

Charles the Dauphin, who was, like a fox, else- 
where taking shelter, failed to appear when summoned 
before the Parliament to meet his doom. His father 
then authorised his pursuit, he was solemnly, as a 
treacherous assassin, deprived of all rights to the 
Crown, and his property, and that of all his followers 
confiscated. This sentence was, naturally, all the more 



184 The France of Joan of Arc 

popular in Paris, from the fact that the various moneys 
owing to the citizens were ordered to be defrayed from 
the goods of the proscribed Prince and nobles. 

Throughout the following year and nine months 
(January 1421 — August 1422), Henry ruled in Royal 
State at the Louvre, exercising all the powers of a 
King of France of whatever description that they 
might be. To him the people came for justice, by 
him were the Royal appointments filled and the Royal 
edicts signed. Great indeed was the position to which 
the unlawful occupant of the throne of England had 
attained in France. 

As a Monarch, however, Henry V. was worthy of 
his exalted station and filled it well. His air was 
noble and majestic ; while proud in his bearing, he 
did not forget to be courteous and conciliating ; his 
speech, of which he was sparing, was dignified and 
devoid of the oaths then so commonly used ; to the 
dignitaries of the Church he was, while respectful, by 
no means obsequious ; and of his personal bravery he 
had given a hundred proofs. Further, when any bad 
news was brought to him he never showed signs of 
being either excited or downcast, but only at once 
took careful measures to repair any damage done and 
avert future calamities. What more could be required 
in a King ? 

The result of the high bearing and the success of 
Henry was to make him not only everywhere feared 
but also respected. Nor was this respect confined to 
France alone, but it became imposed also upon the 
minds of the great German Princes. Among the great 
prisoners who always followed in his train, in company 
of his devoted servant, the powerful Due de Bourgogne, 



The Greatness of Henry V 185 

were a King — James I. of Scotland — and two Princes: 
the Due de Bourbon and the young Arthur, eventually 
to become Duke of Brittany. 

Ambassadors from every Christian State likewise 
thronged to Henry's Court of Paris, for was he not 
the greatest Prince in Christendom ? 

So mighty was he that, no doubt in return for 
subsidies which he bestowed, the great Archbishop- 
Princes of Treves and Mayence paid him homage, 
while the Elector Palatine and other German Princes 
placed their affairs in his hands, and begged him to 
be the arbiter of their personal concerns and dis- 
sensions. 

No ruler of England had ever carried the name of 
England so high as had the bold Henry V. by the 
year 142 1 ; and from the foregoing it will be remarked 
that he attained more nearly to the dignity of the 
Imperial throne than the actual wearer of the Crown 
of the Holy Roman Empire. 

One of the greatest factors in the grandeur of this 
great English King, of whose name we even yet may 
boast, was his diplomatic continuance of the alliance 
with the Church which had been commenced by his 
father, Henry IV. Those two great powers, the 
Crown and the Church, having so amicably combined 
for the conquest and reform of schismatic France, 
affairs became far easier for the wearer of the crown. 
The English Church, which had already to a great 
extent emancipated itself from the Papal authority in 
the matter of ecclesiastical elections, naturally did not 
care to be rendered subservient to a French Pope, 
kept under the thumb of the French Monarchy at 
Avignon. One only and an universal Pope was 



i86 The France of Joan of Arc 

enough for England, and, accordingly, the churchmen 
were only too ready to join with the King in reducing 
the French Monarchy which had supported Benedict 
XIII. at Avignon. With this idea in view, the great 
dignitaries of the English Church had opened their 
money-bags freely to help Henry to subdue a 
schismatic Royalty which, for its own selfish reasons, 
maintained the supremacy of a schismatic Pope. 

The time had, however, arrived when the close tie 
between the English Church and the English King 
had become somewhat loosened. In the year 141 5 
the Council of Constance, in which the English Church 
had been strongly represented, had induced Gregory 
XII. of Rome to resign, Benedict of Avignon being 
already in flight. John XXIII. of Rome had also been 
deposed, and was held for some time as a captive 
by Henry Beaufort, Cardinal-Bishop of Winchester, 
the uncle of Henry V. 

Then, in November 141 7, the Council of Constance 
elected as universal Pope, Otto Colonna, who reigned 
as Martin V., and after this the English churchmen had 
lost their main reason for the subjugation of France, 
to which country they had followed the King. In 
addition, they were not over-pleased with his politic 
treatment of the French priesthood, with whom he 
was too lenient, allowing them to retain all their cures 
or bishoprics, provided only that they recognised his 
authority. All of these benefices the greedy English 
churchmen wished to obtain for themselves. 

When they found that the French churchmen were 
priests first and only Frenchmen afterwards, and con- 
sequently willing to submit to Henry, the English 
ecclesiastics became disappointed and discontented. 



The Greatness of Henry V 187 

There were a number of churchmen in the Council 
of Henry, and they soon showed that they disliked 
the French priests, even to the extent of procuring 
the hanging of several of those who took part in the 
defence of the Norman cities reduced by the King. 
It will be remembered that the Archbishop of Canter- 
)ury it was who arranged the terms for the capitulation 
f Rouen. In these terms he expressly excepted a 
certain Canon de Livet. The Canon, being rich, 
managed to buy his life, but he was roughly treated 
and sent as a prisoner to England. Two monks were, 
moreover, hanged on the capture of Melun. 

Among the French hangers-on of the Cardinal of 
Winchester was a certain Bishop of Meaux, Cauchon 
by name, of whom, as Bishop of Beauvais, we shall 
hear much later on. This miserable tool of Henry 
Beaufort threw various monks of Saint-Denis into 
horrible dungeons for having assisted at the defence 
of Meaux. It was only by the humble prayers of the 
Abbot of Saint-Denis that their lives were spared ; 
but they might far better have died than lived to 
experience the terrible fate of perpetual imprison- 
ment in a damp and dark in pace underneath a 
monastery. 

While there was money to be made out of the 
annexation of the foreign benefices for their own 
benefit, the great English Church dignitaries hung 
on tightly enough to the skirts of Henry the Con- 
queror. Not troubling themselves in the least about 
the concerns of their flocks in England, they were 
ever to be found in the King's camp. It will be 
remembered that the Bishop of Norwich died before 
Harfleur at the time of the siege of that place. 



1 88 The France of Joan of Arc 

Before Henry's second expedition Into France, it 
was in the hands of Henry Beaufort and the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury that he left the raising of all 
kinds of feudal rights and forfeitures, in order to 
procure him the money he needed. It Is not to 
be supposed that the wily churchmen let slip the 
opportunity of greatly enriching themselves. The 
Cardinal of Winchester became, it is supposed, the 
richest man in the world. So wealthy, indeed, was 
the uncle of the King, that he was to be found 
advancing to the Crown such immense sums as fifty 
thousand pounds at a time ; and it must be remem- 
bered that fifty thousand then was worth as much as 
two hundred and fifty thousand to-day. 

There was a certain amount of cunning in the 
cruel treatment of the French priests by the English 
Bishops, as, naturally, it was calculated to make those 
who had absented themselves from their benefices 
stop away. Their absence made it impossible for 
Henry to confirm them in their charges, although 
he lost no opportunity of recalling them. 

In their continued absence, their benefices were 
declared vacant, when the English prelates seized 
them for themselves, and gave or sold them to their 
creatures. An instance of this sort was seen when 
Henry marched into Paris. The Bishop of that 
city, Jean Courtecuisse by name, made himself 
scarce ; and so frightened was he that no represen- 
tations or threats of Henry could induce him to 
return. 

It was when the Royalty of the Church no longer 
marched hand in hand with the Royalty of the 
Monarchy that tension arose between the two. This 



The Greatness of Henry V 189 

irritation first commenced between Henry and his 
uncle, the Cardinal of Winchester, in the year 141 7. 
He then publicly accused the priest of mal-administra- 
tion of public moneys, and even of striking counterfeit 
coin ! In June, however, Henry, who wished to 
conciliate this arrogant priest, accorded him letters 
of pardon. During the remainder of the King's life, 
however, the situation remained strained, and, at a 
time when the King found how difficult it was to 
extract money from an exhausted and ruined France, 
he found it also impossible, as hitherto, to have re- 
course to the almost limitless pockets of the Church. 

The English Bishops, heretofore, while lending 
money, had always extracted guarantees from the 
King for its repayment out of French benefices. 
When Henry, in his endeavour to rule France justly, 
gave to the French clergy the opportunity of them- 
selves retaining their benefices, by submission, the 
covetous English ecclesiastics put their hands in their 
pockets — and kept them there ! 

In the year 142 1 the Armagnacs, under their 
discredited leader, Charles the Dauphin, the assassin 
of Jean Sans Peur, occupied the city of Meaux, and 
also laid siege to Chartres. 

In order to subdue them, Henry found himself 
greatly in need of money. The Church failing him, 
he was obliged to resort to all kinds of more or less 
arbitrary measures, both in France and in England. 
In this latter country, where the farce was gone 
through of asking for a so-called voluntary loan, 
which had to be paid most involuntarily, there was 
great discontent. 

The English people, mindful of the past, had 



1 90 The France of Joan of Arc 

expected France to pay them — they did not in the 
least appreciate having to pay for the pleasure of 
holding France, of the maintenance there of an 
immense and expensive army. 

This army became, however, more than ever a 
necessity after the defeat, in March 142 1, of an 
English force in the province of Anjou. It was 
commanded by Thomas, Duke of Clarence, and this 
young Prince, with several thousand English soldiers, 
lost their lives in this disastrous battle of Beaug^. 

After this reverse, several doughty soldiers of 
Picardy and Brittany- — the Comte d'Harcourt, and the 
free-lances Poton de Xaintrailles and La Hire — joined 
the Dauphin, also many other gentlemen of less note, 
and as these indulged in sudden bold expeditions and 
raids, France was once more alive with armed men, 
from whose pillage, burning, and outrage the wretched 
people suffered terribly. The old ferocity of the 
Armagnacs broke out anew, and, as all was fish that 
came to the net of these Gascon adventurers, no 
man's house or possessions were safe, no man's wife 
or daughters secure from the brutal ravisher. 

One of the most terrible of the Armagnac captains 
was the Bastard of Vaurus. He has been described 
by Monstrelet and Pierre de Fenin as *' a perfect 
ogre." 

So detested and detestable was he that, so say 
these Burgundian chroniclers, many of the people 
armed and joined the English. The Bastard of 
Vaurus was the Dauphin's commandant of the city 
of Meaux. Making of this place his headquarters, 
he would sally forth and waste the country round, 
to a considerable distance, with fire and sword. 



The Greatness of Henry V 191 

Wisely, Henry determined that he must, no matter 
at what cost, suppress this red-handed brigand ; and 
his declaration of his intention of besieging Meaux 
considerably increased his popularity in France. 

The Bastard of Vaurus knew from his crimes that 
he could expect no mercy if captured — mercy being 
a commodity he had himself never been wont to deal 
in. He and his blood-thirsty associates in Meaux 
defended themselves therefore like tigers. 

Henry V. being, as usual, present in command 
of his forces, the Bastard used to assail him from 
the ramparts not only with every other weapon at 
his command, but likewise his tongue. With the 
foulest of language and bitter invective, the Armagnac 
captain jeered at the English King, and, the better 
to insult the besieger, placed a crowned jackass upon 
the walls, with a label on its neck stating that it 
was the King of England. To give more point to 
the jest, the Gascon soldiers were in the habit of 
soundly cudgelling the unfortunate animal. 

These bold bandits from the south cared nothing 
for France, but fought merely for what they could 
make out of warfare. None the less, they aided the 
country considerably by their determined resistance, 
which kept Henry before the walls of Meaux from 
October 142 1 until June 1422. Finding his army 
wasting away, from cold, hunger, and that terrible 
scourge, then so common, the plague, Henry was at 
his wits' end for fresh soldiers to replace the English- 
men who had succumbed. The Dauphin was already 
writing to Germany for mercenary soldiers, but Henry 
wrote also, and outbid him with success ; he also 
obtained some troops from Portugal. 



192 The France of Joan of Arc 

Although the Due Philippe had, some months 
earlier, gained a brilliant success upon his own account, 
defeating the Armagnacs under Xalntrailles in Picardy, 
he not only gave little assistance to Henry before 
Meaux, but caused the King to suspect his fidelity. 
This young Prince came to the army before Meaux 
for a short time only, and then he left, on a plausible 
excuse, to go to his Duchy of Burgundy. When he 
had gone, Henry had every cause to believe that the 
Due de Bourgogne had himself instigated the agitation 
which he said existed In Burgundy against the treaty 
of Troyes. If this were true it was but natural, since 
by that treaty not only the Dauphin but also Burgundy, 
the junior branch of the Royal family of France, was 
for ever excluded from the succession in favour of 
England. 

Meaux fell into Henry's hands at last, but he paid 
dearly for his acquisition, for during the long siege he 
had laid the seeds of a bowel complaint that was to 
cause his death before the end of the year. While 
before Meaux he learned that his young Queen had 
given birth to a son at Windsor. Thereupon he 
remarked sadly, '* Henry of Monmouth has reigned a 
short time and conquered much. Henry of Windsor 
will reign long and lose all." 



CHAPTER XV 

The Awful Condition of France 

1420 — 1422 

Although Henry V. and his English followers had 
been received so well upon their first entry into Paris, 
as time went on they to a great extent wore out their 
welcome. The cause for this change is in a great 
measure to be ascribed to the friction which arose in 
many little ways between the English and the Bur- 
gundians, the reflection of which spread to the people. 
There were, of course, faults on both sides, and the 
greatest Seigneurs were chiefly to blame. One of the 
first to insult the Burgundians, even before the acces- 
sion of Philippe to the Dukedom, had been Humphrey, 
Duke of Gloucester. This Prince was at the Court of 
Jean Sans Peur in the position of a hostage, when 
Philippe, then Comte de Charolais, entered the room 
where he was talking to some other English nobles. 
Gloucester did not trouble himself to show any polite- 
ness to the young Prince, but abruptly said *' Good 
morning," without even turning round. This was an 
insult which was not forgotten by Philippe later on. 
The next insult to be chronicled was one from the 
Burgundian Sire de I'lsle-Adam to King Henry. Isle- 
Adam arrived in the King's presence in a dirty and 

193 



1 94 The France of Joan of Arc 

shabby old coat of mail. Henry was annoyed at this 
apparent want of respect. 

** What, Sir," he remarked, *' is that a becoming 
dress for one who is a Marechal de France ? " 

While looking the King in the face in an inso- 
lent manner. Isle- Adam answered that he had donned 
this rusty coat of mail expressly to travel on the 
river Seine. His defiant glance angered the King, 
who returned haughtily : *' Do you dare thus to look a 
Prince in the face when you address him." 

** Sire," replied the Frenchman, with no less 
hauteur, ** that is the custom of us Frenchmen. When 
speaking to a man, of no matter what rank, we look 
him straight in the face. Were we not to do so we 
should deem ourselves of but little account." 

*' Then it is not the custom in England," angrily 
replied the King, and shortly afterwards, when Isle- 
Adam committed some fresh act of impertinence, the 
Duke of Exeter, then Captain of Paris, dragged him 
off to the Bastille. 

As there was an attempt on the part of a tumultu- 
ous mob to rescue the insolent Marechal on his way 
to the prison, the English soldiers forming the escort 
savagely charged the people, and killed and wounded 
a number of them. It was only owing to the inter- 
cession of the Due Philippe that Isle- Adam then 
escaped with his life, as Henry declared his intention 
of putting to death this man, who had himself connived 
at the barbarous slaughter of so many at the time of 
the Paris massacres. 

As the friction went on increasing, Henry became 
convinced that he could no longer count on the 
genuine alliance of the man who had begged him for 



The Awful Condition of France 195 

help in his vengeance on his father's murderers. He 
accordingly sought to gain a point d appui against 
Philippe in Flanders, and, just as Louis, Due 
d' Orleans had formerly done, entered into treaty with 
the King of the Romans for the acquisition of the 
Duchy of Luxembourg, which was subject to the 
Empire. As, after this, Henry also endeavoured to 
establish a very close friendship with the citizens of 
Li^ge, these actions changed into hatred the former 
friendship of Philippe de Bourgogne. 

In spite of increasing mutual jealousy, there was, 
however, no open rupture between the King and the 
young Burgundian Due. The jealousy was, however, 
bad enough in itself, and it became the cause of the 
greatest calamity to England. In the late summer of 
1422 the Due de Bourgogne summoned Henry to 
lend him a hand in a battle which he intended to 
deliver upon the followers of the Dauphin. The King 
had never recovered from the bowel complaint con- 
tracted at the siege of Meaux. 

This peculiar, irritating disease was very prevalent 
at that time among the soldiers, with whom it went 
by the name of '' the fire of Saint-Anthony." This 
illness at length had developed, in the King's case, 
into dysentery. Nevertheless, when called upon for 
succour, he was afraid lest Philippe should, if it were 
refused, win a second battle single-handed, as he had 
already done in Picardy. 

The King was urged to send the required rein- 
forcements, but, ill as he was, he insisted upon going 
with them in person, being carried in a litter. 

Henry's sickness increased so much on the way 
that he was never able to join the Burgundian forces, 
12 



19^ The France of Joan of Arc 

but had to be carried back to ^the Tower of 
Vincennes. 

There the physicians informed him that he had 
not long to live, whereupon the King faced his 
approaching end with the same courage that he had 
displayed throughout his life. While commending 
his infant son to the care of his brothers of Bedford 
and Gloucester, he also gave them the good advice 
particularly to endeavour to keep on friendly terms 
with the Due de Bourgogne. However badly affairs 
might possibly turn out in the war against the 
Dauphin, Henry enjoined them, in the event of a 
peace, to Insist upon retaining the whole of the Duchy 
of Normandy. 

Henry's only lament was, in dying, that God had 
not allowed him to live to his full age, in order to 
finish off the war in France, and then undertake the 
conquest of the Holy Land. 

Upon August 31, 1422, this brave Prince breathed 
his last, and his remains were transported to West- 
minster, where he was solemnly Interred amid the 
unfeigned mourning of the whole of the English 
nation. Had Henry V. lived but two months 
longer, he would actually have assumed the Crown 
of that France of which for nearly two years he 
occupied the throne, as Charles VI. followed him to 
the tomb before the end of October of that same 
year. 

While in England the people were still lamenting 
the death of their triumphant hero, In France the 
French people grieved no less deeply for the loss of 
their Imbecile King. 

The lower orders of Paris particularly showed how 



The Awful Condition of France 19? 

dear to them had been Charles VI. — "their good 
Prince ! " Never, they said, would they see again 
one like him. And now that he was gone to his 
repose they were to be left to nothing but perpetual 
trouble — endless wars ! 

Charles was carried off to Saint-Denis, the mau- 
soleum of the Kings of France, but his funeral was 
poorly attended by the great ones of the earth. The 
only Prince of Royal blood to follow him to the tomb 
was a foreigner — John, Duke of Bedford. Of his 
numerous family all were dead or absent. The 
daughter who had married Philippe when Due de 
Charolais was dead, another was now the widow of 
the King of England; a third, after having been the 
wife of Richard II. of England, had married Charles, 
Due d'Orl^ans, a perpetual prisoner in a foreign 
country. Four sons were dead, and the only sur- 
viving son, Charles le Dauphin, was not even legally 
Dauphin, since he had been banished and disinherited 
by his father on account of his crimes. 

After the body of Charles VI. had been lowered 
into the grave, the Herald King-at-Arms of France 
solemnly proclaimed Henry VI., the infant son of 
Henry V., in the following words : '' God grant long 
life to Henry, by the grace of God King of France 
and England, our Sovereign Lord." 

The accession of the new, and English, King 
found France in a condition of moral death and 
physical dissolution. By the defeat at Agincourt the 
Armagnacs had been very hard hit, and by the 
massacres in 1418 they had been yet more sorely 
smitten. The practical death-blow to the party had, 
however, been dealt to themselves by their own 



198 The France of Joan o Arc 

hands, when the Dauphin and his associates murdered 
Jean Sans Peur at the Bridge of Montereau. The 
Burgundian party was in but Httle better case. Tlie 
University, the bourgeois, the Cabochiens of Paris 
had been obliged to own that they had been duped 
by their leader, the Due de Bourgogne, who had 
delivered them over into the hands of the English. 
It was true that the new King of France was the 
son of a French Princess, and grandson of their 
beloved Charles VI., but for the people he was, and 
remained, an Englishman ; his assumption of the 
Crown cut out their own Royal line of France. Thus 
the great majority of the people could but feel down- 
cast and saddened. 

As for the actual condition of the country, it was 
indeed deplorable ; the depopulation from the time of 
the first invasion of Henry V. had increased monthly 
and yearly, by war, famine, and plague, until whole 
districts had become but solitary wastes. The land 
remained uncultivated, and the wretched peasants, 
tired of sowing only that others might reap, had 
thrown away their farm implements, deserted wives 
and children, and taken to the woods, there to worship 
Satan, while expressing their intention of doing all the 
evil in their power. 

Famine had brought the plague, and the plague 
famine again in its train, time after time during the 
last four years. The epidemic in Paris in 1418, the 
year of the massacres of the Armagnacs, is said by 
Monstrelet, and the " Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris," 
to have carried off eighty thousand souls in the city 
alone! The Bourgeois de Paris, in his quaint 
chronicle, describes the dead in that year as being 



The Awful Condition of France 199 

buried '* in layers of thirty and forty corpses together, 
like packing bacon ! " 

When in 1420 the English had marched into 
Paris, it had been hoped that their arrival would result 
in not only the re-establishment of order, but a cessa- 
tion from the terrible pangs of hunger. The starving 
people were soon undeceived. " All through Paris," 
says the Bourgeois, **you could hear the pitiable 
lamentation of the little children, who cried out, ' I am 
dying of hunger.' One saw upon one dung-heap 
twenty, thirty children, boys and girls, dying of hunger 
and of cold. No heart was so hard but had great pity 
upon hearing their piteous cry throughout the night : 
' I die of starvation.' " 

In the following year, 1421, there was no cessation 
of this terrible starvation. Then the dog-killer was 
followed in the streets by the famished populace, which 
fell upon the slaughtered dogs and devoured every- 
thing — flesh, skin, and entrails ! 

Meanwhile the wolves, finding nothing to eat in 
the deserted country, nightly invaded the city of Paris, 
to dig up the corpses, which were scarcely covered, 
and devour them. 

As life was rendered even yet more insupportable 
by the merciless taxes, and the swarms of starving 
beggars who had thronged to the city, all who could 
do so fled from Paris, leaving the streets and their 
deserted homes to the undisputed possession of the 
awful beggars, whose menaces were scarcely worse 
to listen to than their prayers. 

It is scarcely to be wondered at that when Death 
was thus supreme everywhere he should have been 
celebrated in that extraordinary dance, said to have 



200 The France of Joan of Arc 

been introduced by the English, the ** danse macabre," 
or Dance of Death, which used at this time to be 
participated in by sick and well alike in the ceme- 
teries. In this terrible dance Death, the lord of all, 
was represented by a grinning skeleton, and the dances 
were continued for several months. The Cemetery 
of the Innocents, to which, in the second year of the 
reign of Henry VI., the frenzied people particularly 
resorted to dance callously on the bones of all who 
had been dear to them, was bulging to overflowing. 
Nobody was able to remain buried for long, as no 
place could be found for the newly dead among the 
masses of decaying humanity. 

Accordingly charnel-houses were built all around 
it, in which, above an arched gallery used as a 
burying-place, were lofts or granaries. In these 
terrible granaries, instead of the wheat so greatly 
required, were stored the half-rotten bones thrown 
out by the grave-diggers when burying the fresh 
corpses. Eventually the soil of this cemetery, en- 
tirely composed of human remains, became so piled 
up that its surface attained to a height of eight feet 
above the surrounding streets. 

With a France in the state of misery above de- 
scribed it is no subject for marvel if the people of 
England were bitterly deceived in the hopes in which 
they had indulged before Agincourt that the country 
would prove a mine of gold to be exploited for their 
benefit. While their new King succeeded to this 
barren heritage they would on the contrary find, as 
already in the time of his gallant father, that English 
Sovereignty would have to be maintained in France 
with English gold. 



CHAPTER XVI 
Gilles de Retz, Devil^worshipper 

1422 and Later 

While the general state of affairs was as above de- 
tailed the condition of the Seigniorial Barons in France 
was one of absolute lawlessness and unrestraint during 
the first half of the fifteenth century. The country- 
was then still divided in its allegiance to the King 
of France, the King of England, the great Dukes 
of Burgundy and of Brittany, even to lesser potentates 
such as the Due d'Anjou and the Comte d'Armagnac. 
Those border independent rulers, the Kings of 
Navarre and Dukes of Lorraine, at times laying 
claim to and seizing portions of French territory, 
the Comtes de Foix also founding a semi-independent 
kingdom in Languedoc, all was confusion in the 
ancient land of Gaul. 

The feudality of the great nobles, in a country 
of which portions were always changing hands, was 
shaken to its roots. No Seigneur knew for long 
who was his proper liege-lord to whom he should 
render homage and feudal service for his fiefs ; the 
chances of the continual wars making the vassal of 
one great Prince to-day liable to become the vassal 

of another to-morrow. Under these circumstances 

201 



202 The France of Joan of Arc 

there was but little fidelity observable among the 
Seigneurs and Barons. Many of these, assuming an 
independent attitude, fortified themselves in their 
castles, refusing to render feudal service to the one 
party or the other until compelled to submission by 
force, and treating the surrounding country as their 
lawful prey, the lives and honour of the peasantry 
being at their mercy. 

Others, and they were an increasing number, 
lived by war and pillage. Raising large bands of 
their retainers, enlisting also under their banners a 
lawless soldiery of mixed nationalities, they formed 
** companies " of terrible free-lances, with whom they 
sold themselves to the highest bidder, were he French 
or English, Breton or Burgundian. Nationality 
counted for nothing. In this way we see those re- 
doubtable Breton warriors, Du Guesclin and Olivier de 
Clisson, becoming Constables of France, and warring 
against their own Dukes of Brittany, when it suited 
them to do so, quite as light-heartedly as they led 
their cut-throat bands against a King of Castile or a 
King of Aragon. 

Up to the end of the fourteenth century, when 
the Barons, although proud and domineering, had 
resided more commonly upon their fiefs, their cruel- 
ties and exactions had in a measure been restrained 
by an unwritten law — that of cicstom. In his most 
violent moments the Seigneur was liable to find him- 
self visited by his men, who would say to him re- 
spectfully : '' Messire, it is not * the custom ' of the 
good people of these parts." The old men, the 
prudhommes of the country, as living examples of 
ancient custom, were conducted to his presence, and 



Gilles de Reiz^ Devils worshipper 203 

the wildness of the passion of the brutal young Baron 
fell before their representations. 

In the fifteenth century, however, both the fear of 
God and the fear of custom had greatly fallen into 
disuse. The Seigneur, no longer a resident in per- 
manency, cared nothing for his people or their customs. 
He went off with his soldiers to make money ; only 
returning at times with those soldiers to exact the last 
farthing from the peasantry on his estates. These 
descents were often made suddenly, so as to surprise 
his tenantry, as, if forewarned, so great was the fear 
of their lord, the whole agricultural population was apt 
to take to the woods and mountains at his approach. 

These seigniorial captains, such as the Bastard of 
Bourbon, the Bastard of Vaurus, Chabannes, and the 
celebrated and ungodly La Hire, of Orleans fame, 
were indeed scarcely Christians. All know the story of 
how the Maid of Orleans, finding it almost impossible 
for La Hire to speak without uttering an oath or a 
blasphemy, was compelled to allow him to swear at 
least by his walking-stick. 

They were flayers, skinners, the ruiners of what 
was already ruined, the robbers of the very shirt 
which the brigands before them might have left upon 
an unfortunate man's back. 

How barbarous were their methods may be under- 
stood by their treatment of their own parents and 
relations. Family ties meant nothing — to be a father 
or a brother was often merely to be the more regarded 
as an enemy, and more so to be a wife. 

The Comte d'Harcourt imprisoned his father for 
life, while the Comtesse de Foix poisoned her sister ; 
the story of how the Sire de Giac treated his wife, 



204 The France of Joan of Arc 

which we have already given, is more horrible still. 
When, after having given her poison, he compelled 
her to gallop fifteen miles behind him until she died, it 
was for love of another woman, a certain Madame de 
Tonnerre, that the Sire de Giac committed this atrocity. 
One of the Dukes of Brittany, again, starved his 
brother to death ; his piteous cries for bread could be 
heard by people outside the fortress where he was 
imprisoned ! 

That Border noble, Adolfe de Gueldre, treated his 
father more cruelly even than the Comte d'Harcourt. 
Under the excuse that parricide was the rule in the 
family, Adolfe dragged his father from his bed, com- 
pelled him to walk naked five miles, and then threw 
him down into a horrible dungeon to die ! Instances 
of similar inhumanities to their relations might be 
quoted from other great families, such as Luxembourg, 
Bar, Verdun, and, of course, Armagnac ; but it is now 
our purpose to relate the cruelties, almost surpassing 
all belief, of a great noble ; which cruelties were not, 
however, directed towards members of his own family, 
but to helpless and inoffending children. 

In the times of Charles VI., the crazy King of 
France, and of his son, Charles VII., there was no 
greater Seigneur in the whole of the land of France 
than the Mar^chal Gilles de Retz, Baron de Laval. 
Born about 1396, he distinguished himself as a youth 
against the English, and fought against them subse- 
quently at the siege of Orleans. It was for his 
brilliant services under Joan of Arc that he received 
his Marshal's baton from Charles VII. 

The House of Laval, to which de Retz belonged, 
was a branch of that of de Montfort, the reigning ducal 



Gilles de Retz, Devil^worshipper 205 

family in Brittany. Gilles himself was rich, not only in 
his own family and by his marriage into the family of 
de Thouars, but also as the heir of Jean de Craon, 
his maternal grandfather. From de Craon, who had 
been the Seigneur of Suze, of Chantoce and Ingrande, 
all of those places, on the Marches of Maine, Brittany, 
and Poitou, had descended to de Retz. It was pre- 
cisely these Barons of the marches, who were neither 
under one jurisdiction nor the other, that remained 
floating between the King of France and the Duke of 
Brittany. They existed, as a rule, free from the 
judgment of either. An instance of this immunity 
had been seen in the person of Pierre de Craon four 
years before the birth of Gilles de Retz, who, as will 
be remembered, in the war of Naples, robbed the war- 
chest of his master, Louis I., Due d'Anjou, who 
claimed the Neapolitan Crown. The result of his 
villainy was that the Due d'Anjou perished miserably. 
At that time one of the most redoubtable men was 
de Clisson, the Breton. In France he was Constable 
of the Kingdom — the King's sword, by which the 
nobles were held in restraint. In Brittany, on the 
other hand, de Clisson was the chief of the discon- 
tented nobles, who were against their Duke chiefly on 
account of his close connection with the English. 

When, in accordance with the playful customs of 
the day, the Duke of Brittany sought to murder de 
Clisson, de Craon, who had suffered from the Con- 
stable's unconcealed disdain, volunteered, as we have 
already related, to perform the deed. 

After his unsuccessful attempt at assassination, 
Pierre de Craon galloped off to his castle of Sahli 
in Maine, and thence over the border into Brittany, 



2o6 The France of Joan of Arc 

and eventually escaped without any punishment for 
his crime. 

As for Gilles de Retz, the nephew of Pierre de 
Craon, with whom we are now concerned, his manner 
was such as to gain confidence. He is described 
as having been of noble and handsome presence, with 
agreeable manners ; well-read also, and greatly 
appreciating those who spoke the Latin tongue with 
elegance. So much was he appreciated by the young 
King Charles VII. that, at the time of his consecra- 
tion at Reims, Charles selected this Seigneur of the 
borderlands as the bearer of the holy oil with which 
he was to be anointed. 

Although Retz was on very bad terms with Jean 
de Malestroit, Bishop of Nantes, the cousin and 
Chancellor of the Duke of Brittany, he was reckoned 
as a religious and devout noble ; his claims to devo- 
tion chiefly resting upon the fact that he had built 
a splendid chapel, in which he maintained a choir of 
numerous choristers at his own expense. At that 
epoch church music, imported from Flanders, had 
become very popular owing to the encouragement of 
the King's uncles and cousins, the Dukes of Burgundy, 
who were also Counts of Flanders. De Retz caused 
himself to be considered a patron of the Church 
therefore when he appeared everywhere followed by 
an orchestra and troops of white-robed choir-boys. 

Nevertheless, his name was very greatly feared, 
his high lineage and deeds of arms alike having made 
the Baron de Laval an object of reverence and awe. 

In spite, however, of his reputed devotion, for the 
period of some fourteen years there were certain 
sinister and strange reports whispered concerning this 



Gilles de Retz, Devil^worshipper 207 

noble Seigneur. These, for the time, no man dared 
to utter aloud, especially as the King had elevated 
the rank of this great lord, transforming his Barony of 
Laval into a County. 

At length a strange accusation came to the ears of 
de Montfort, the Duke of Brittany, and his cousin, 
the Bishop of Nantes. It concerned this Laval, issue 
of the Montforts, and it related at first to the pro- 
ceedings of an old woman, named la Meffraie. It 
was reported that this hag, wandering about the 
country fields and moorlands of Brittany, approached 
and made up to little children of either sex who were 
keeping the shdep or begging. She enticed them 
with flattering words and little presents to follow her, 
while all the time keeping her face partly concealed. 
La Meffraie contrived to lead these children as far as 
the castle of Gilles de Retz, and when once they had 
entered those portals they were never seen again. 

No actual complaints had ever been made while 
only the children of poor peasants, or those deserted 
by their parents, were thus decoyed away ; but by 
degrees the same fate befel children who were the 
inhabitants of towns. Even in the great Breton city 
of Nantes, in a respectable family, a child was kid- 
napped. The wife of a painter, having yielded up 
her young brother to emissaries of Retz, who promised 
to make of him a choir-boy, the child was never heard 
of more. 

The Duke of Brittany lent a ready ear to the 
complaints, while the Bishop of Nantes was delighted 
to have an opportunity of striking at the family of 
Laval. For the Sire de Retz, in his pride and 
lawlessness, had even by force of arms broken into 



2o8 The France of Joan of Arc 

one of the Bishop's churches, ignoring utterly the 
rights of sanctuary which had been afforded to some 
of his enemies who had taken shelter therein. 

It was decided to form a high tribunal and cite the 
Sire de Retz to appear before it. This tribunal con- 
sisted of the Bishop, Chancellor of Brittany, of the 
Vicar of the Inquisition, and of Pierre de I'Hospital, 
the Chief Judge of the Duchy. Gilles de Retz could 
have fled had he so chosen, but, deeming himself too 
powerful for punishment, he boldly surrendered him- 
self for his trial. 

He commenced by openly challenging the justice 
of his Judges, all of whom he declared to be his 
known enemies. He was not, however, able in a 
similar manner to challenge the truth of the wit- 
nesses, who appeared in crowds to testify as to his 
iniquities. 

Weeping and wailing, one after another these poor 
people detailed the carrying off of their children. 
Nor did the miserable tools whom Retz had employed, 
la Meffraie and others, attempt to shield the lord 
whom they now saw in misfortune. Thereupon 
de Retz ceased to deny the accusations made. He 
burst into tears and made a full confession. So 
horrible, so awful were the details of this confession 
that the Judges trembled and crossed themselves with 
fear. For the terrors of Nero, the sacrifices to Moloch 
of old, revealed no such horrors of cruelty as those 
which had been perpetrated by Gilles de Retz in his 
Seigniorial castles. 

Investigation in the courtyard of his castle of 
Chantoc^ revealed an enormous heap of half-burned 
bones of children ; in the vaulted sewers of the Castle 



Gilles de Rctz, Devil^worshipper 209 

of Suze was found a similar pile of the bones of 
children of all ages. In all the other castles also of 
which the Lord of Laval had made temporary resting- 
places heaps of bones, burned and unburned, were 
discovered. One servant alone, a valet de chambre 
named Henriot, testified to having delivered over forty- 
children to their death. About three hundred were 
accounted for altogether! Now what was the cause of 
this awful butchery of infants, this wholesale slaughter 
of the innocents, by the high and puissant Seigneur, 
Gilles de Retz ? Terrible, indeed, was the cause of 
their bloody destruction. They were sacrificed as 
offerings to the Devil ! 

De Retz had associated with himself a young 
priest, who came to him from Pistoia in Italy, and 
who promised to make him see various demons. 
Together they invoked devils, under the names of 
Barron, Orient, Beelzebub, Satan, and Belial, praying 
to them for '* gold, knowledge, and power." In 
addition to the Italian priest, Gilles de Retz is said 
to have had an English retainer to assist him in his 
sorceries and charms, but he himself took the greatest 
delight in the rites of the bloody sacrifices. One of the 
witnesses testified — and all the testimony is still extant 
in the archives of Nantes — that : '' The said Sire took 
the greatest pleasure in cutting their throats, or in 
causing their throats to be cut"; and further, •* He 
caused their necks to be cut from behind, that they 
might die more slowly." At times he offered up on 
his altars to Satan not only the blood of a child, but 
his hands, his eyes, or his heart, or he offered them 
as a sacrament to be taken by his magician. 

These atrocious sacrifices were accompanied by 



2IO The France of Joan of Arc 

the solemn singing of the Mass of All Saints in honour 
of the malignant spirits. The evidence all tended to 
show that the nature of this sacrificer to devils had, 
by degrees, itself actually become that of a devil. 

Delighting in death, Retz still more enjoyed 
witnessing its prolonged agonies. He laughed to see 
the grimaces of the dying faces, and, according to one 
witness, his accomplice, Griart, this horrible vampire 
or ghoul, even seated himself upon the palpitating 
bodies of his miserable child-victims during their last 
convulsions. 

« The most extraordinary circumstance in connection 
with Gilles de Retz is that, although so utterly lost to 
all ideas of right or wrong, he nevertheless reckoned 
upon having gained the salvation of his soul ! 

For, while praying and sacrificing to the Devil, he 
also prayed to God, trying as it were to make a bargain 
with both, while hoping to deceive both. To Satan 
he promised everything, "except his life and his soul" ; 
to God he caused Masses to be celebrated, and gorgeous 
processions to be instituted in His honour. 

That his mind was at ease upon his approaching 
end is evident from his last words to his magician, 
the Italian priest: ''Adieu, Frangois, my friend; I 
pray God that He may give you good patience and 
knowledge ; be certain that, provided you have good 
patience and hope in God, we shall meet again in the 
great joys of Paradise." 

Although condemned to the stake and placed upon 
the fagots, Gilles de Retz was not burned. 

Out of consideration for his rank, and for the 
nobiHty in general, he was strangled before the flames 
reached his body. Nor was his body consumed. 




JOAN WOUNDED AT THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 



211 



Gilles de Rctz, Devil" worshipper 213 

Some noble damoiselles came to the field outside 
Nantes where it lay upon the but partially burned 
fagots. With their noble hands they washed the 
mortal remains of this awful sinner, and, aided by 
some nuns, gave them a very honourable burial in the 
church of the Carmelites. His execution is the first 
recorded as having taken place upon the person of a 
great noble in France for the mere crime of inhumanity 
and cruelty. 

Although for the full space of fourteen years this 
Satan-worshipping noble (whose evil doings were the 
origin of the story of Blue Beard) had practised his 
nefarious sorceries, he only owed it to a singular 
chance that he ever found himself accused or punished 
for his horrible crimes. 

This was the tnost unusual circumstance that three 
parties usually opposed, those of the Duke of Brittany, 
the Bishops of Nantes, and the King of France, had 
combined together to bring about his punishment. 

The Duke was jealous of the strong position of 
the Lavals and the branches of Retz, in their line 
of fortresses on the marches of Poitou, Maine, and 
Brittany ; the King had determined no longer to 
defend the brigands who brought him such an ill name ; 
and the Bishop was the personal enemy of the Devil- 
worshipping Grand Seigneur. 

Inspired by the Constable of France, de Richemont, 
who was the brother of the Duke of Brittany, the 
King had already two years earlier sent an armed 
force to seize one of the lieutenants of de Retz, for 
his lawless conduct upon the marches of Poitou. This 
rigour on the part of the King of France had prepared 
the way for the downfall of the Mar^chal himself, 
13 



214 The France of Joan of Arc 

since it emboldened his enemies to set in motion the 
Bishop and the Inquisitor against him. 

There was, however, in those days no other 
example of a man of his rank being punished, 
although many were almost as guilty as the Mardchal 
Gilles de Retz. Other men of blood, like himself 
returning from the wars to their fortified castles, 
continued the most atrocious warfare upon the poor 
and defenceless ; while also employing the most 
treacherous means to take at a disadvantage and 
destroy, by fire, assault, violence, and rapine, other 
noble Seigneurs, their wives and daughters, their 
children and their grandchildren. 

Such remained the horrible manners of the country 
nobility of France in many districts, until, two hundred 
years later, Cardinal de Richelieu, by the institution of 
the roving commission of the ** Grands Jours," made 
a determined effort to suppress the unpunished atrocities 
of the Barons. And even then, with merely one or 
two exceptions, the most cruel escaped with impunity. 



CHAPTER XVII 

The Diplomacy of Yolande 

1422--1428 

The old historian Walsingham, speaking of Henry V., 
has called him by the title of Princeps Presbyterorum 
— the Prince of the Priests, and, when we recall to 
mind his pious homilies to the Herald of France and 
his prisoners after Agincourt, the name seems by no 
means inappropriately applied. While commenting 
on this, in a disquisition upon *' The Imitation of Jesus 
Christ," a French writer of the last century has 
affirmed that the real Kings of England were its 
prelates, in whom dwelt the wisdom but not the 
Spirit of God. After the death of Henry V. — the 
King-Priest, says this writer, while probably chiefly 
thinking of the Cardinal of Winchester — England 
experienced the strange spectacle of the Priest- King, 
" the Royalty of usury in the man of the Church, 
murderous violence in the garb of a Pharisee ; a 
Satan ! but under an entirely new form ; no longer 
that old figure of a shameful and fugitive Satan. No, 
Satan authorised, decent, respectable, Satan rich, fat 
on his Bishop's throne, dogmatically judging and 
reforming the Saints. 

" Satan having become this venerable personage, 

215 



2 1 6 The France of Joan of Arc 

the opposing role remained to our Lord. It was 
necessary that He should be dragged by the constables 
before this grave Chief Justice, just as though he were 
a wretched parish ne'er-do-weel — what do I say ? Like 
a heretic or a sorcerer, as being strongly suspected of 
either being in relation with the demon, or the demon 
himself. It became necessary that our Lord should 
allow himself to be condemned and burnt, as devil, by 
the Devil. 

** Things have to go to that length. It is then 
only that the marvelling audience will see this good- 
fellow of a judge lose countenance and writhe in his 
ermines. Then each one will resume his natural role ; 
the drama will be completed, the mystery accomplished." 

We had read and re-read the above on various 
occasions without ever being able to fathom the exact 
idea at the back of the mind of our author, nor just 
how his words applied to the times immediately suc- 
ceeding the death of Henry V. Then a glimmer of 
light dawned — he must surely be thinking of Joan of 
Arc — of her treatment by the English Cardinal 
of Winchester and his myrmidon, Cauchon, the 
French Bishop of Beauvais ! 

Had we but read further, instead of needlessly 
puzzling our brains over these words, every now and 
again, at intervals of several years, we should have 
learned long since that this was the actual meaning 
of these remarks concerning Satan in the garb of an 
English churchman. But a little below we eventually 
found the following : 

** The Imitation of Jesus- Christ, his Passion repro- 
duced in the Pucelle, such was the Redemption of 
France ! " 



The Diplomacy of Yolande 217 

And then our author proceeds to explain that if 
the spirit of ** The Imitation," resignation, were not 
found in Joan there was a good reason for the 
anomaly. 

This reason given is that with resignation comes 
hope, which is also of God, and with hope faith in 
justice. While, for clerical readers, '* The Imitation" 
preaches patience and passion, for the people, for the 
simple of heart, it teaches the lesson of action. 

Therefore must we not marvel if in Joan we find 
one of the people who, to quote her own words, *' for 
the sake of the pity that there was in the Kingdom of 
France," had cast aside the womanly virtue of patience 
and assumed the manly attributes of action and war ; 
if, in short, the saint became a soldier, and, sword in 
hand, fought for the redemption of her country. 
Whether we marvel or no when we read of her 
wonderful career, we shall surely not condemn her 
for the manner in which, could she have read, she 
would have translated the teachings of '' The Imita- 
tion of Jesus Christ." 

It will not now be long before we are enabled to 
judge of Joan's activities and heroic deeds, but it will 
not be from the bigoted point of view of Satan in the 
guise of the English churchman of her day. 

7|r 7p W ^ Tp TjC 

With the passing from the scene of Henry V. and 
Charles VI., with the advent of the infant Henry VI. 
to the thrones of France and England, a new epoch 
commences. 

The Dauphin Charles must not yet be considered 
in the light of Charles VII., King of France, since not 
he but the English boy it was who had been solemnly 



2 1 8 The France of Joan of Arc 

proclaimed at Saint-Denis over the open tomb of 
Charles VI. And yet, for the sake of convenience, 
and because the histories give the date of the accession 
of this Prince from the year 1422, we also will now 
speak of him as Charles VII., a style to which he only 
became entitled, even in the eyes of Joan of Arc, some 
seven years later, when crowned at Reims. Charles 
VII., who had been born of Isabeau of Bavaria at 
Paris in February 1403, was the fifth and only sur- 
viving son of Charles VI. and consequently nineteen 
years old when, discredited by the illegitimacy with 
which he had been branded by the Treaty of Troyes, 
he found himself in the position of a King without a 
Kingdom. He was still unmarried, though shortly to 
be provided with an amiable young wife through 
the scheming abilities of Yolande, Duchesse d'Anjou, 
Queen of Sicily. 

To this spouse, however, he was by no means 
faithful, and his famous and agreeable mistress Agnes 
Sorel, who was one of her maids of honour, not only 
usurped the Queen's place in his affections but also 
robbed her in another manner. To Agnes Sorel has 
been unjustly ascribed the credit of that which be- 
longed to the Queen, Marie dAnjou, namely the 
honour of having maintained the courage of Charles 
VII. when he was on the point of giving way and 
throwing up the sponge in the contest with his enemies. 
Agnes had four daughters by Charles, and was known 
at the French Court as La Dame de Beaut6. 

Charles had also another mistress, in the person of 
Antoinette de Maignelais, the first cousin of Agn^s 
Sorel, who introduced her to the Prince her paramour. 
Antoinette, who married the King's Chamberlain, the 



The Diplomacy of Yolande 219 

Baron de Villecquier, enjoyed the unenviable notoriety 
of becoming the procuress for Charles VII. This 
arrogant woman eventually became the mistress of 
Francis II., Duke of Brittany. At his Court she 
became most powerful, and, having associated herself 
with him in his movement against Louis XI., 
Antoinette became deprived of her French estates, 
which were very large. 

The Baroness de Villecquier had no children ac- 
knowledged by Charles VII., but had five by the 
Duke of Brittany, in addition to two born while living 
at the French Court with her husband. As an ex- 
ample of the manner in which then, as later, vice 
prospered at the French Courts, while three of Agnes 
Sorel's children were legitimised, the eldest son of 
Antoinette and the Duke of Brittany was not only 
legitimised but created the Premier Baron of that 
Duchy. 

The young Charles VII, did not start by enjoying 
the popularity of the people of his country ; he had 
too long been associated with the pillaging Armagnacs, 
by whom he had been surrounded from childhood. 
Nor was his crime of the murder of Jean Sans Peur 
to be readily forgiven. In the north of France not 
only was the influence of Burgundy paramount but 
the Armagnacs, the Gascons, were loathed and detested 
as foreigners with whom there could be nothing in 
common. 

Failing any afflux of Frenchmen to his standard, 
Charles went to Scotland, the enemy of England, 
for his soldiers, and soon his army was filled with 
adventurers who came from the north of the Tweed to 
seek fame and fortune in France. Nor were many of 



220 The France of Joan of Arc 

them disappointed ; great posts and titles fell to the 
lot of needy lads of good Scotch families, while those 
of lesser rank in many instances enriched themselves 
by the results of pillage, as formerly in their border 
warfare at home. 

While the great position of Constable of France 
became actually held by a Scotsman, another was 
exalted to the titles and estates of the Comte de 
Touraine. Yet were not these Scotsmen by any 
means always successful when they met the English- 
men in France. They had frequently been defeated, 
and were before long to find dire disaster once more 
overtaking them upon the bloody field of Crdvant in 
1423, and again at Verneuil in 1424, where the 
English, under Bedford, cut them up to the last 
man. 

After the death of Henry V., while Humphrey, 
Duke of Gloucester, became Protector in England, 
his brother John, Duke of Bedford, was Regent for 
his young nephew in France. These two brothers 
did not at all agree in their attitude towards Philippe, 
Due de Bourgogne. Consequently, we soon find 
Gloucester doing his best to damage English interests 
by quarrelling with Philippe, while at the same moment 
Bedford was taking Philippe's young sister to wife. 

We have already mentioned how Burgundy had 
endeavoured to round off her Flemish possessions by 
judicious marriages with the heirs to the two Counties 
of Holland and Hainaut. The eventual heiress to 
both of these became the young Comtesse Jacqueline. 
After a child-marriage with the Dauphin Jean of 
France, who died in his eighteenth year, Jacqueline 
became once more d marier. Thereupon Jean Sans 



The Diplomacy of Yolande 221 

Peur, then omnipotent in France, gave her in marriage 
to his cousin, Jean IV., Due de Brabant, a sickly boy, 
hoping that she would have no heir, and that his son 
Philippe would succeed to Jacqueline's dominions. 

The young mistress of Holland and Hainaut, who 
was a strong, handsome girl of an ardent temperament, 
had other views for herself. Saying that she required 
a man, not an invalid for a husband, Jacqueline deserted 
her Due de Brabant, went over to England, and 
merrily told Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, that she 
wished both for a husband and an heir ; adding that, 
if he liked her, he could take her himself. Gloucester, 
who did like her, did not wait for a second proposal. 
His ambition was also at stake. In England he found 
his power as Protector altogether overshadowed by 
that of his immensely wealthy and arrogant uncle, 
Henry Beaufort, Cardinal of Winchester ; likewise he 
had failed in his attempt to become adopted by 
Joanna II., Queen of Naples. Again, Humphrey was 
jealous of the position of his brother, Bedford, in 
France. He thought that by taking Jacqueline of 
Hainaut at her word he might also procure her 
domains, and become himself some one of importance 
as the ruling Comte of Holland and Hainaut. 

Accordingly, Humphrey contracted a bigamous 
marriage with this very volatile Princess, and in 1423, 
having taken her to his bed, took in hand also her 
quarrel with Philippe de Bourgogne, with whom he 
went to war for the possession of her dominions. 

This war begun in Flanders with Philippe, the 
Comte de Flandre, was of all things the most im- 
politic for English interests in France. For his brother 
Bedford, however, and France, in which he had no 



222 The France of Joan of Arc 

share, Gloucester cared nothing at all, and yet it was 
upon Bedford, his brother-in-law, that the Due de 
Bourgogne at once was able to visit his displeasure. 

This displeasure resulted in the considerable 
crippling of Bedford In France, since, to begin with, 
Philippe asked for two large sums of money. The 
first of these was the unpaid dowry of his first wife, 
who had been a daughter of Charles VI., and the 
second a large annual pension promised to Philippe by 
Henry V. in return for the acknowledgment of the 
justice of Henry's claim to the throne of France. 

Being unable to find the immense sums required 
to satisfy these claims, Bedford, in September 1423, 
yielded up to Bourgogne a whole string of places, 
including Tournai, which formed the northern defences 
of France. 

A little later, the young Duke of Gloucester was 
guilty of a fresh act of extravagance, Proclaiming 
himself Jacqueline's knight, he challenged Philippe to 
mortal combat on her behalf. Thereupon Bourgogne 
came down upon his brother-in-law once more, when 
the latter. In order to keep on terms of amity, mort- 
gaged to him, as security for his debt, some strong 
places on the French eastern frontier. 

The Armagnac faction of Charles VH. took ad- 
vantage of the mutual difficulties of Burgundy and 
England to raid the English possessions in France — 
notably Normandy. They only suffered severely for 
their pains, as Bedford administered to them the 
crushing defeat of Verneull, in which the Scotch 
suffered so terribly. 

While the Due de Bourgogne was thus picking 
up piece-meal all of northern France, Humphrey 



The Diplomacy of Yolande 223, 

suddenly changed his tactics. Having seen some one 
whom he liked better than Jacqueline, who had not, 
by the by, been gratified with the hoped-for heir, he 
deserted this frivolous young lady, just as she had. 
deserted the Due de Brabant. Leaving the fair 
Comtesse of Holland to fight her own battles while 
besieged by Burgundy in the city of Bergues, he 
married a handsome young English lady named 
Eleanor Cobham. 

In London the curious spectacle was now witnessed 
of some great English ladies, instigated by the Cardinal 
of Winchester, petitioning the House of Lords in 
favour of Jacqueline ; but while Henry Beaufort was 
thus trying to damage his nephew's credit in England, 
in France matters took a turn. 

Delighted at the manner in which Gloucester had 
left Jacqueline in the lurch, Philippe became once 
more friendly with Bedford, who cemented the friend- 
ship by advising him to occupy, not only Jacqueline's 
possessions of Holland and Hainaut, but those of her 
previous and sickly husband Jean IV. de Brabant, 
who had not long to live. 

Thus it will be noticed that the young Charles VII. 
and his party did not gain very materially by the 
dissensions between Bedford and the Due de Bour- 
gogne, brought about by the follies of Humphrey 
of Gloucester. Yet one advantage they obtained, 
which was that, thinking that the alliance between 
England and Burgundy was coming to an end, one 
of the greatest Seigneurs in France ratted, deserted 
both the English and Burgundians, and went over to 
Charles VII. 

The Comte de Foix, the princely owner of the 



224 The France of Joan of Arc 

County of Foix, on the borders of Navarre, the close 
relation of the Captal de Buch, who had taken 
Pontoise for the English, and the Sire de Navailles, 
who had been murdered with Jean Sans Peur, was 
also the Governor of Languedoc. Of this great 
province he was practically King. 

During the above-mentioned quarrel between the 
allies, this Comte de Foix wrote that, having caused 
a celebrated Judge of Foix to carefully examine the 
rival claims of Henry and Charles to the Crown 
of France, he had come to the conclusion that 
Charles VII. was the lawful King of the country. 
To this Prince he accordingly offered the allegiance 
of Languedoc, but on the express understanding that 
he was not to be interfered with there in any way, 
nor that either money or men should be asked for 
from the province. 

Although the Comte de Foix took no material 
advantages with him to Charles, yet was his desertion 
looked upon as a considerable loss of prestige to 
England and her friends in France. More advan- 
tageous than this gain of prestige proved to Charles 
the machinations of that clever woman, Yolande of 
Aragon, Duchesse d'Anjou and nominal Queen of 
Sicily, who was also ruling Comtesse of the great 
southern province of Provence. 

This Princess, with so many great interests, the 
claimant of the throne of Naples, had had for mother 
a lady who came of the Bar branch of the ducal 
family of Lorraine. She had been considerably dis- 
turbed by the efforts of the Duke of Gloucester to 
procure his adoption by Joanna II., Queen of Naples, 
and resolved in consequence to form against the 



The Diplomacy of Yolande 225 

English a combination by which Lorraine and Anjou 
should become closely connected with Charles VII. 

Her first move was a successful one, as she gave 
her seventeen-year-old daughter Marie to this young 
pretender to the French Crown in the year 1422. 

Her next efforts were directed towards securing 
for her second son Ren6 the succession of the in- 
dependent Duchy of Lorraine, which was then ruled 
by a Prince named Charles le Hardi — Charles the 
Bold. The Due Charles was the determined enemy 
of the whole Orleanist faction, and, naturally, therefore 
of Charles VII. This Prince was closely connected 
by marriage with Philippe of Burgundy, and in con- 
sequence the ambition of Yolande was not easy of 
fulfilment. 

Her scheme, however, resulted in a second triumph 
for Yolande. Her mother's brother, the reigning Due 
de Bar, was an old Cardinal, and, although he had 
been previously at war with the Due de Lorraine, 
he was ready for a reconciliation. This reconciliation 
was arranged upon the conditions that the Cardinal 
would leave his dominions of Bar to his great-nephew 
Ren6 if Charles le Hardi would give him in marriage 
his only daughter, Isabelle, the heiress of Lorraine. 
Thus would the two Duchies, previously rivals, become 
united. In order to gain the Due de Lorraine over 
to this arrangement, Yolande worked upon a French 
lady named Alizon du May, one whom she is herself 
suspected of having given as mistress to the elderly 
Charles le Hardi. Alizon, in turn, persuaded her 
ducal paramour to agree to this plan, by which, 
while eternal peace was assured, the united Duchies 
of Bar and Lorraine would pass to a French Prince. 



226 The France of Joan of Arc 

The bargain, which united Anjou and Lorraine to 
the party of Charles VII., was the more easily carried 
out owing to the fact that Henry V. had previously 
grossly insulted the Due de Lorraine In the person 
of his daughter. Having asked for the hand of 
Isabelle for himself, Henry had thrown over the 
princely maiden and taken to wife instead the fair 
young Catherine of France. 

The town of Guise in Picardy, which later gave 
its name to the famous Dues de Guise, belonged to 
the Due de Lorraine, and the anger of Charles le 
Hardi was therefore increased against England and 
Burgundy when, in the year 1424, the troops of 
Philippe seized upon this city. This irritation definitely 
settled the matter of his alliance with Anjou, and, 
through Anjou, with Charles VII. The Due de 
Lorraine formally caused the Estates of his realm, 
assembled in session, to recognise Lorraine as 
descending in the female line through his daughter 
Isabelle, and as passing to her and her husband Rene 
on his death. 

In spite of this useful alliance, Yolande was too 
clever a woman to at once break openly with England. 
She thought that until she found herself a little 
stronger, both in Lorraine and in the Kingdom of 
Naples, she would do well not to provoke Bedford, 
not to cause her French provinces to be overrun with 
his English armies. But she was useful to her son- 
in-law Charles VII. in many ways. By her sound 
advice, she induced him to get the Duke of Brittany 
on his side by giving the sword of the Constable 
of France once more Into the hand of a Breton. This 
was Arthur, Comte de Riehemont, brother to the 



The Diplomacy of Yolande 227 

Due Jean V. of Brittany. As Jean V. also married 
the Princess Jeanne, sister to Charles VII., a very 
useful alliance was thus arranged. 

More good advice had Yolande at her disposal. 
This was that her son-in-law Charles VII. would do 
well to get rid of his old Armagnac partisans. As 
the Comte de Richemont likewise refused to accept 
the post of Constable of France unless all concerned 
in the murder of Jean Sans Peur were sent away, 
Yolande's advice was listened to. The party of 
Charles became, in consequence, the more acceptable 
to all of those who refused to join him so long as he 
retained these cut-throat Armagnac nobles about his 
person. 

Once they had been discharged the Dauphin, 
as Charles was still called, commenced to be looked 
upon as quite a respectable personage, and he soon 
found many new adherents flocking to his standard. 
Through the influence of the diplomatic Yolande, 
he was reinforced by Spaniards from Aragon and by 
Lombards from Italy. By giving him Richemont as 
Constable, she also supplied him with many Bretons, 
while many of the Gascons who had served formerly 
under the discharged Armagnac leaders also remained 
in his service. 

Although his forces were thus increased, his state 
of impecuniosity was the cause of his being able to 
effect at first little or nothing. He was, moreover, a 
foolish youth, who surrounded himself with despicable 
favourites, whose effete counsels he listed to while 
disregarding the Comte de Richemont. The brother 
of the Duke of Brittany proved, however, for a time 
the stronger, and, using his strength, he put half a 

I 



22 8 The France of Joan of Arc 

dozen of these men, including the ignoble Sire de Giac, 
to death, without any form of trial. 

Thinking that if Charles were to have favourites 
he would, instead of killing them off in succession, do 
better to supply them himself, the Constable now 
brought to the Prince the young noble Georges de 
la Tremouille, while suggesting that he would find 
in him a suitable friend. 

Charles seems at first to have had his doubts of la 
Tremouille, and remarked to Richemont : *' You give 
him to me, beau cousin, but you will repent of it, for I 
know him better than you do." 

Richemont soon did repent of it, for Georges de la 
Tremouille at once ungratefully formed a party against 
the Constable. Matters soon arrived at such a pitch 
that, while Charles gave to the Comte de Richemont 
the extraordinary order that he was not to draw the 
sword in his service, the followers of the young King 
and those of the Constable were constantly to be seen 
flying at one another's throats. 

For the space of five years (142 7- 143 2) Richemont 
and Tremouille waged private war with each other. 
Thus, in spite of all the well-calculated diplomacy of 
that woman of brains, Yolande of Aragon, in spite of 
the adherence of the great Comte de Foix, and not- 
withstanding the cooling off of Burgundy towards 
England, the party of Charles remained weak and 
powerless in France. 

Bedford, who was well informed of their state of 
division, now thought the time had arrived to push 
to the south across the Loire, and, as the first step in 
this direction, assembled all of the fighting men at his 
disposal before the city of Orleans. 




229 



i 
I 



CHAPTER XVIII 

^^The Battle of the Herrings'' 

1429 

Owing to his difficulty in raising sufficient money in 
an exhausted France, Bedford found it impossible to 
retain the great English lords in his service without 
continually making them grants of French estates and 
fiefs. He could not help himself, as at home the 
violent quarrels between his brother Gloucester and 
his uncle the Cardinal disorganised affairs and thus 
prevented the raising of English supplies. 

This action irritated more and more the French 
nobles of the English party until, at length, but few 
French gentlemen remained attached to Bedford and 
the cause of Henry VI. The result was that the army 
which Bedford could put before Orleans was by no 
means large, being only between ten and eleven 
thousand men in all. 

In addition to not forgetting to help himself, the 
Regent handed over estates to all of his principal 
leaders. These included the aged Talbot, Earl of 
Shrewsbury, and the Earls of Warwick, Suffolk, 
Arundel, and Salisbury. 

The soldiers serving under these commanders were, 
if few in number, all good men and true, who had been 
14 231 



2:32 The France of Joan of Arc 

well tried in many a combat. They were also inde- 
fatigable, and soon raised around the city of Orleans 
on the Loire a series of forts, which were called 
bastilles. Owing to want of numbers, the besieging 
army, which opened operations on October 12, 
1428, was unable to connect these forts; they there- 
fore remained isolated, and, consequently, weaker than 
if they had formed part of a continuous enceinte. 

The Earl of Salisbury was the Commander-in- 
Chief of the English force at the commencement of 
the investment, while each of the bastilles was under 
the command of a separate chief Of these, both 
Suffolk and Talbot were noted for their bravery, while 
a third leader, who was celebrated not only for his 
fierce courage but his ferocious hatred of the French, 
was Sir William Glansdale. 

Glansdale commanded the most dangerous point of 
all, the strong bastille across the Loire to the south of 
the beleaguered city, and he savagely announced his 
intention of killing all of the inhabitants without ex- 
ception, should he succeed in penetrating into Orleans. 
Each of these bastilles was named after a town ; 
such as the Bastille of London, the Bastille of Rouen, 
and the Bastille of Paris. They were armed with 
artillery which fired large stone cannon-balls, some of 
which projectiles weighed up to a hundred and sixty 
pounds. In addition to these places close to the city, 
there were half a dozen other spots in the vicinity 
which had been seized and fortified, and were held by 
the English. 

There was a good reason for the attack of this city 
of the Loire, which formed the key to the south of 
France, for Orleans had, when other places changed, 



''The Battle of the Herrings'' 233 

remained throughout Armagnac to the core, the centre 
of the long-standing opposition to Burgundy and 
England. 

The citizens of the place, inspired by old-time 
hatred, determined from the first to leave no stone 
unturned in its defence, to spare no effort, no self- 
sacrifice. In this self-sacrificing spirit, they at once 
burned and destroyed the large suburbs which might 
have served as cover to the attacking force, and which 
contained numerous churches and convents. At the 
same time, they set to work to cast cannon and manu- 
facture ammunition for their guns, while welcoming 
within their walls any old soldiers of the Armagnac 
party who chose to come and offer their assistance. 

In this manner, while they soon had sixty guns in 
position, the Orleannais were reinforced not only by 
Italians, Spaniards from Aragon, and Scotsmen, com- 
manded by a Stewart, but also by all of the savage 
Gascon soldiery, with Albret, La Hire, and Xaintrailles 
as leaders. As a result of the recent union of Ren^ 
d'Anjou, soon to become Due de Bar, with the heiress 
of Lorraine, some gentlemen from those border 
Duchies also came to join in the defence. 

The Orleannais were in good spirits, and, as the 
English had not been able to close all of the ap- 
proaches to the city, they were well supplied with 
provisions. They laughed at the English cannon- 
balls, which they declared killed nobody. The most 
serious accident which occurred, they asserted, was 
when a missile from an English cannon tore a shoe 
from the foot of a citizen without damaging its wearer. 

Their own guns were well served, especially one 
culverin, of which the gunner was a certain Jean 



234 The France of Joan of Arc 

from Lorraine. This Jean was remarkably daring, 
and, while recklessly exposing himself on the walls, 
was in the habit of mocking the English, by whom 
he was well known. One of the tricks of Gunner 
Jean was occasionally to pretend to fall, shot dead. 
After causing himself to be carried away as a corpse 
by his comrades, he would reappear, and, with 
derisive laughter, commence to serve his gun once 
more with deadly effect. 

One of the principal men, if not the actual com- 
mander of the besieged forces, was Dunois, the famous 
Bastard of Orleans. As the siege dragged on, occa- 
sional complimentary messages and gifts would pass 
between Dunois and the English leaders. We learn 
that on one occasion he was even polite enough to 
send to the Earl of Suffolk a good fur coat, where- 
upon Suffolk sent him in return a basket of figs, 
which were scarce, as the season was advanced. 

There was great joy in Orleans when one day, 
by a lucky shot, the English Commander-in-Chief was 
killed. The Earl of Salisbury was making a tour of in- 
spection of his works, and, while standing on the walls 
of the bastille commanded by Glansdale, the latter was 
pointing out to him the city, while assuring him that 
it would soon be his. In the meantime, on a tower 
of the defences which had been christened Notre- 
Dame, there happened to be a boy, the son of one 
of the gunners who had gone to his dinner. Ambitious 
to become a gunner upon his own account, this lad 
carefully trained his father's piece upon the two 
English Generals. He fired the gun, when, to his 
delight, the Earl of Salisbury fell dead, the top of 
his head having been blown off 



i 



''The Battle of the Herrings'' 235 

A siege in those days was apt to be more amusing 
than one in modern times. Owing to the shortness 
of range of the cannon, and the bows and cross-bows 
employed, the attackers and defenders were often 
near enough to recognise one another easily, and 
even to shout to one another. To enliven the pro- 
ceedings, upon days when there was no sharp fighting, 
such as when the defenders made a sortie, or when 
a combat occurred to prevent the entrance of a 
convoy of provisions, duels were frequent. 

While these took place in front of the walls, all 
other fighting was suspended, and all on both sides 
assembled to see the sport. 

Upon one such occasion the English pages 
challenged the French pages to mortal combat. 
There was a most spirited encounter, during which 
these gay-hearted lads afforded much entertainment 
to the Knights their masters. Many of these were, 
however, hard put to it to don and doff their armour 
later, having lost their young servitors in this mimic 
battle. The English pages proved the conquerors 
upon this occasion, but when, in another duel, two 
Gascon gentlemen challenged two Englishmen, the 
Gascons won the day. 

As the siege of Orleans slowly dragged on without 
any apparent advantage to either side, the English 
elsewhere were overrunning the country at their ease. 
Living upon the districts which they traversed, they 
devastated the three adjoining central provinces of 
Bourbonnais, Berri, and Poitou. 

The youthful Comte de Clermont was now sent 
by his father, Louis IL, Due de Bourbon, to reinforce 
the people of Orleans. At the head of a chivalrous 



236 The France of Joan of Arc 

band of gentlemen of Auvergne, Touralne, and Anjou, 
accompanied also by some Scotch Knights and men- 
at-arms, he brought with him a convoy of provisions. 

The instructions given to this young Prince by 
his father were also to prevent the English from 
revictualling their lines. Clermont succeeded in 
getting his own convoy safely into the city, and had 
not been there long when news arrived that the 
Duke of Bedford was also sending a large supply 
of food from Paris to the besiegers. 

The Duke had cleverly taken advantage of the 
old hatred of the Burgundian butchers of Paris, the 
Cabochiens, for the Armagnacs, by means of which 
he readily found a fine body of bourgeois, chiefly 
cross-bowmen, willing to go with his English against 
the detested city in which their wives and daughters 
had been imprisoned after being so ill-treated by the 
soldiers who conducted them thither. 

The commander of the party was a certain Sir 
John Fastolfe, who was on a subsequent occasion 
accused of cowardice by Talbot, but whose previous 
record had been that of a noble and gallant Knight. 
Fastolfe had with him several hundred carts laden 
with munitions of war and provisions, these being 
chiefly herrings for the Lenten season. With all 
his carts strung out one behind the other, and his 
force divided in order to protect the convoy through- 
out its length, Fastolfe ran a great risk of being inter- 
cepted had a bold attack been but promptly made upon 
him by the Comte de Clermont. 

It was certainly not the English commander nor 
any member of his force that played the coward in 
the action that took place as he was approaching 



**Thc Battle of the Herrings" 237 

Orleans. There his heavily burdened wagons, with 
their straggling escort, had been seen from the walls, 
when that bold Gascon freebooter, La Hire, wished 
to fall upon them at once. 

The young cousin of Charles VII., however, after 
assembling his troops outside the walls, forbade his 
followers to make an immediate attack, and kept them 
halted. 

Fastolfe, in the meantime, showed himself a 
capable commander. Having seen his imminent 
danger, he took advantage of the delay to form up 
his three hundred carts into a rough oblong or 
" laager." Outside of the carts he caused all of his 
men to plant the sharp-pointed stakes which they 
carried with them, in the same way as these useful 
stakes had been employed at Agincourt. 

To the right of his wagons he placed his trusty 
English soldiers, and to their left the bold Cabochiens 
of Paris, with their crossbows. The Parisians were 
commanded by the Provost of the Merchants in 
person, and, although not soldiers accustomed to war, 
they maintained a bold front when they saw them- 
selves confronted by the hated Armagnacs. 

These latter were carried away by hatred likewise, 
and, while the cannon from the walls of Orleans 
pounded into the wagons of herrings, they broke 
away from the Comte de Clermont. Headed by the 
Scotch men-at-arms, who threw themselves from their 
horses the better to get at their enemies, La Hire and 
the Gascons of Clermont's force rushed to the attack. 
Upon neither side could the Gascons of La Hire or 
the Scotsmen make the slightest impression. The 
Parisians stood as firm as the Enq-jish, and the 



238 The France of Joan of Arc 

attackers, sufifering terribly, fell Into confusion. Then 
Fastolfe gave the order to charge, and, issuing from 
among the baggage-wagons, English and Cabochiens 
fell with fury upon Clermont's men, and drove them 
back headlong towards the city. 

The young Comte, with the remainder of his men, 
remained motionless near the walls of Orleans. 

Having seen some four or five hundred of his men 
cut down upon the field, La Hire became mad with 
rage. Observing how the English had become 
scattered in the ardour of pursuit, he rallied a few of 
his men, and, returning, cut down in detail a few of 
his victorious foes before being eventually driven 
right back, first upon Clermont, and then pell-mell 
Into the city. 

Many of the herring-barrels had been burst by the 
cannon-balls, and thousands of herrings littered the 
plain among the dead and dying men. In consequence, 
this action, in which Sir John Fastolfe and his men 
behaved so bravely, and Clermont in such a cowardly 
manner, became known, derisively, as " The Battle of 
the Herrings." 

After this battle the people of Orleans lost courage, 
and some of their leaders, notably two dignitaries of 
the Church, in despair of rescue, left them in the 
lurch, and departed to a place of safety. These 
churchmen were Regnault de Chartres, Archbishop 
of Reims, and the Bishop of Orleans, who, in hurriedly 
leaving the city in the middle of February 1429, 
assured their devoted flock that they would soon 
return and bring assistance with them. 

Others who deserted Orleans at this crisis were 
the Chancellor and the Admiral of France, and last, 



''The Battle of the Herrings'' 239 

but not least, the Comte de Clermont, with the two 
thousand men who remained to him after his defeat. 

One man there was, however, who remained 
behind to protect the appanage of the great House of 
which he was a representative, the only representa- 
tive, if illegitimate, that remained upon the soil of 
France. This was Dunois, Bastard of Orleans. 

Dunois had already, before the Archbishop of 
Reims took flight, assured this prelate and the people 
of the city that assistance was coming, assistance of 
a most miraculous nature. There was, he said, a 
certain virgin maid of whom he had heard upon the 
borders of Lorraine, one who had promised to come 
and save the city, and upon her he pinned his faith. 

The Archbishop of Reims was a man of the world, 
a diplomat who had been to Rome and there learned 
how miracles were manufactured. He snapped his 
fingers in the face of Dunois, and told him that he 
did not believe that in his virgin maid ! And then 
he wished him a very good day. The people of the 
city also informed the gallant Bastard that they were 
not inclined to listen to his fairy-tales. 



CHAPTER XIX 

Charles and the Maid 

1428 — 1429 

At the same time that the bold Bastard of Orleans 
was getting himself laughed at with his talk about a 
miraculous maid, he was taking more material means 
to improve the situation at the besieged town of 
Orleans. 

Philippe le Bon had some troops with those of the 
English before the city when Dunois conceived the 
idea of writing to him to ask him, as a relation of 
the captive Charles, Due d' Orleans, to take that 
Prince's appanage under his protection. 

It was an original idea, certainly, to ask the son of 
Jean Sans Peur to join in protecting the interests 
of the son of the man whom Jean Sans Peur had 
murdered, but apparently Dunois knew his Philippe. 

He was well aware that the Due de Bourgogne 
had just grabbed Holland and Hainaut from Jacque- 
line ; why, then, might he not be pleased with the idea 
of occupying Orleans also ? 

As a bait, Dunois suggested that Philippe should 
seize upon the centre of France for his own benefit. 

The Due de Bourgogne was tempted, but before 

doing anything he loyally went to his brother-in-law, 

240 



Charles and the Maid 241 

Bedford, in Paris, and told him of the offers made to 
him by the Bastard. 

The Regent for Henry VI. in France did not take 
the matter at all kindly, but roughly told his brother- 
in-law that it was not for his benefit that he had been 
working for so long. Thereupon Bourgogne got into 
a huff, and, leaving Bedford abruptly, recalled all of 
his troops from before Orleans. There, however, the 
English do not appear to have missed the Burgundians, 
as by the time of their departure they had just com- 
pleted their series of forts around the city, notably 
by a bastille called Saint-Jean-le-Blanc, which closed 
the river Loire to the passage of provisions into 
Orleans. 

Within the walls discontent and even treason now 
became rife among the hungry citizens, many of 
whom, tired of fighting for their absent Prince, were 
ready to join the English. So far did treason go that 
Dunois discovered that a large hole had been made in 
the walls of the town. 

During the whole of this long period, from the 
middle of October 1428 until the end of April 1429, 
Charles VII. appeared not to take the slightest in- 
terest in the fate of Orleans. Since his father's death 
he had resided chiefly at a place called Mehun-sur- 
Yevre, but when in 1428 he summoned the Estates 
to that place to vote him men and money neither did 
the feudal vassals called upon to serve put in an 
appearance nor was the money voted by the Estates 
paid in to the exchequer of the Prince. 

The Dauphin seems, indeed, to have been found 
in very bad case when Dunois sent La Hire to him 
to ask for aid. Upon his return the Gascon leader 



242 The France of Joan of Arc 

reported that Charles VII. had been only able to 
regale him with the very scraggiest kind of a dinner, 
of which a sheep's tail formed the piece de resistance. 

In his anxiety to counteract the domination of the 
English and to obtain money, Charles now made 
treaties with the Scotch, by which the County of 
Saintonge, containing the important seaport of La 
Rochelle, was ceded to the King of Scotland and his 
heirs-male, on condition of their giving homage for 
the same as peers of France. He even went so far 
as to offer to cede also to Scotland the Duchy of 
Berri, but the price which he asked for this was too 
large for the deal to be effected. 

The divisions of his party, the quarrels between 
the Constable Richemont and the favourite Tr^mouille, 
still more helped to disorganise matters. Some of 
the old Armagnac leaders, who were taken again into 
favour, even wished Charles altogether to abandon 
the rest of France, and to form a monarchy in the 
south, at Grenobles, in Dauphin^. Charles was the 
more hampered owing to the fact that his intriguing 
mother-in-law did not go whole-heartedly with him. 
In her anxiety not to offend the English too far she 
was for ever treating with Bedford with a view to 
the recognition of her son Rent's prospective accession 
to the Duchy of Lorraine. This she did by her 
usual diplomatic methods, often indirectly. For in- 
stance, when in the spring of 1429 affairs looked their 
blackest at Orleans, she induced the old Cardinal- 
Due de Bar to negotiate with Bedford, in Rene's 
name. Should affairs take a turn for the better with 
Charles this left Ren6 in a position to be able to 
say that he had had nothing to do with either the 



Charles and the Maid 243 

Cardinal's or his mother's engagements entered into 
nominally on his behalf. 

Notwithstanding the indifference shown to the 
fate of Orleans by Charles, a great part of France 
remained by no means indifferent. Towns anywhere 
in the neighbourhood of the river Loire, fearing to 
see the English establish themselves to the south 
of that river, exerted themselves to the utmost to 
send provisions, and saltpetre for making powder. 
From distant Languedoc came sulphur and steel, 
while La Rochelle sent money to the besieged. It 
was not that the country, in making these efforts, was 
fighting for the hand of Charles VIL, but simply 
pity for the gallant Orleannais and their imprisoned 
Due Charles which prompted this assistance. The 
inhabitants of France at large felt that the English 
were behaving cruelly towards the captive Prince, 
and, by endeavouring to seize his appanage, not only 
seeking to ruin him, but also his defenceless children. 
This sentiment became notably apparent when Joan 
of Arc announced her mission. She said that this 
was not only to deliver Orleans, but also Charles, 
Due d'Orleans. Even when a great portion of 
France appeared indifferent as to whether it should 
be ruled by a French or an English Prince the 
majority of the women remained French in their 
feelings. An instance of this was to be seen in the 
case of a noble young widow, the Dame de la Roche- 
Guyon, who valiantly defended her castle against the 
English. When compelled to yield she was given 
the opportunity of retaining her possessions provided 
that she would marry Qui le Bouteiller, who was the 
partisan of the English, and whom they installed in 



244 The France of Joan of Arc 

La Roche-Guyon. The courageous chatelaine re- 
fused to accept one whom she named a traitor ; 
refused also to render homage to Henry VI., and 
preferred to wander away homeless and poverty- 
stricken with her small children. 

It was, however, when Bedford attempted to touch 
the goods of the Church that he found many of the 
French priesthood, who had previously been good 
Englishmen, suddenly become far more French even 
than the women. To attempt to touch the pocket 
of the Church either in France or in England was 
a dangerous matter. Henry IV. and Henry V. had 
both realised this from the moment of the advent 
of the House of Lancaster. They had accordingly 
acted warily, Henry IV. declaring that he wished for 
nothing but its prayers from the Church. How 
Henry V. did his utmost to conciliate the French 
priesthood has been already explained ; the needs of 
Bedford, however, made it necessary for him to 
endeavour to tap the only possible source of money 
supply. Unfortunately, he did it far too roughly to 
have any possible chance of success in obtaining the 
funds wherewith to carry on the war. When the 
English Regent calmly requested the French Church 
to hand over to him all the estates and all of the 
incomes which it had received during the last forty 
years the very bristles stood up around the tonsured 
crowns of the priests. Exclaiming that it would be 
paying a bit too highly for the pleasure of being the 
subjects of King Henry VI., they further declared 
that the English were no better than those brigands 
the Armagnacs, who pillaged the churches. 

By this ill-advised request Bedford lost a number 



Charles and the Maid 245 

of friends among his brother churchmen — for we 
had forgotten to mention that the Duke had long 
since caused himself to be enrolled among the Canons 
of the Cathedral of Rouen. That this persecutor of 
the Armagnacs should be compared to his enemies 
of that detested faction was, however, amusing. His 
Government, as one means of raising money, had for 
long past been according pardons, against cash re- 
ceived, to all sorts of unfortunate people suspected 
in any way of being connected with these adventurers 
from the south. For instance, we find a schoolmaster, 
who had taught an Armagnac, being let off with a 
fine of thirty-two golden crowns, while a monk who 
had nursed a wounded Armagnac was made to suffer 
also. One of the most extraordinary pardons we find 
accorded by Bedford was that of two brothers, im- 
prisoned because an Armagnac man-at-arms had 
entered their house by the window and ill-treated them ! 
While the people were many of them hovering in 
their allegiance between Charles VII., the uncle, and 
Henry VI., the nephew, a considerable point in favour 
of the latter was that his mother, Catherine de France, 
was supposed by the people to be the daughter of 
that beloved simpleton. King Charles VI. The 
Dauphin, on the other hand, had been denied as his 
son by Charles VI., with the connivance of the lad's 
own mother. Queen Isabeau. He had been born at 
the time of her greatest intimacy with her brother-in- 
law Louis, Due d'Orleans, and, although she remained 
in France, the unprincipled woman had made no effort 
to withdraw the brand of illegitimacy which she had, 
at the time of the Treaty of Troyes, assisted in placing 
upon her son. 



246 The France of Joan of Arc 

Thus the knotty question of the legitimate heir- 
ship to the throne had been entangled by this evil- 
living woman, the grandmother of the English and 
mother of the French claimant of the Crown, and that 
to such an extent that the Dauphin himself was 
inclined to join with most of the inhabitants of France 
in considering himself the son, not of Charles VI., but 
of Louis, Due d' Orleans. While one woman, and she 
his mother, had thus, apparently wilfully, muddled up 
the question of his birth, it must have seemed to the 
unfortunate Prince as if never, so long as he lived, 
could matters possibly be straightened out for him in 
a manner to enable him to hold up his head as the 
rightful heir. 

There was, however, although he knew it not, 
another woman in France about to come to his assist- 
ance, one who was ready decisively to cut the tangled 
skein. Joan of Arc, in her little country village, was 
even now getting ready to set out upon her travels, 
and, backed by the weight of divine authority, to come 
and assure the Dauphin that he need doubt no 
longer, for that he was indeed the legitimate son of 
Charles VI. 

In the meantime, neither of the Kings had been 
crowned, or '' consecrated " as the ceremony of crown- 
ing was then termed ; and until a Prince was actually 
consecrated as well as acknowledged to be legitimate 
the people in the France of that day were unwilling to 
accept him as their lawful King. When Joan boldly 
declared, '' in the name of God," that Charles was the 
lawful heir, she had already won half the battle. 
Then, being a girl endowed with most excellent 
common sense as well as a faculty for seeing visions, 




FROM THE PAINTING BY INGRES IN THE MUSEE DU LOUVRE, PARIS. 



247 



Charles and the Maid H9 

she won the other half, by doing that which the 
English should have already done with Henry VI., 
namely by taking him to be anointed with the holy 
oil at Reims. 

It was in thus being endowed with the gift of 
common sense rather than in any other way that 
Joan showed the originality which has caused her to 
stand out for all time as one apart from other seers of 
visions, other dreamers of dreams. There were many 
such inspired persons seen in France both before and 
after her time. The hunger and misery of the people, 
the fierce revivalist sermons of the priests, by com- 
bining to excite the imagination, produced many such 
visionaries. Some of these were boys : such a one 
was the shepherd whom Xaintrailles brought with him 
from Brittany. This supposedly inspired lad was 
marked, like our Lord, with the marks of the nails on 
the hands and the feet ; on holy days these marks 
became bleeding wounds. From Brittany also came 
the girl named Pierrette, who was believed to hold 
frequent conversations with Christ. 

From Avignon, the southern town of the Popes, 
came an inspired maiden named Marie, like the 
Virgin. The rough, seafaring population of La 
Rochelle were wonder-stricken when they found 
another such marvellous girl in their midst — she was 
named after Saint Catherine. 

Jeanne Dare, or d'Arc, the beautiful girl who was 
named after Saint- Jean, came from the opposite side 
of France to La Rochelle, from Dom-Remy, a little 
village between the Duchy of Lorraine and the County 
of Champagne. In the clearings of the forests fringing 
the slopes of the mountains of the Vosges, in Lorraine, 
15 



250 The France of )oan of Arc 

were reared various stately abbeys from early times. 
The principal of these, named the Abbaye de Remire- 
mont, was formerly governed by an Abbess who was 
a Princess of the Holy Roman Empire. This exalted 
lady held her own Court in right Royal fashion, 
having her Chamberlains, Grand Masters, and Sene- 
schals, who bore the sword of office before the saintly 
and high-born maid, ruler of vast domains. Not far 
from the ancient feudal domains of Remiremont were 
no less than four villages bearing the name of Dom- 
Remy, all four being situated at various distances from 
one another on the banks of the river Meuse, which 
formed the boundary line between Champagne and 
Lorraine. The village in which Jeanne, or Joan, was 
born had at a more remote date been a fief of the 
more distant Abbey of Saint- Remi of Reims, and it 
was situated just in the debatable land which was so 
often the cause of quarrel between the Dues de 
Lorraine and the Kings of France. Her father, 
Jacques Dare, was a worthy labourer of Champagne, 
a man who seems to have been endowed with shrewd 
sense and to have been devoid of the narrow greed by 
which to this day so many of the French peasantry 
are marked. His daughter resembled her father in 
this respect, her nature being remarkable for a kind of 
clever cunning which lay concealed beneath an en- 
gaging naiveU of manner. 

Had Joan been born at a much earlier date she 
would have been a serf of the Abbey of Saint- Remi, 
and later a serf of the Sires de Joinville, by whom the 
fief of Vaucouleurs, upon which Dom-Remy depended, 
was held until the year 1335. In that year, however, 
King Philippe VL compelled the Sires de Joinville to 



Charles and the Maid 251 

yield up to him the Seigneury of Vaucouleurs, which 
contained the town of that name and much of the 
surrounding country. Joan was therefore born upon 
a Royal fief, Vaucouleurs having been inseparably 
attached to the Crown by Charles V. in 1365. Long 
prior to the year 1335 King Philippe le Bel and 
the Emperor of Germany, Albert, had endeavoured to 
settle the ownership of this much-debated district, 
by together planting boundary-stones near Vaucouleurs. 
These stones had, however, been disregarded and the 
country frequently overrun by the soldiers of the 
various factions by whom France was devastated. 

The Burgundians also owned a border village not 
far from Dom-Remy ; thus from childhood Joan was 
accustomed to see raiding parties from France, 
Lorraine, Burgundy, or Germany roaming sword in 
hand in the neighbourhood of her home. This formed, 
as it were, the central point where three countries 
met, while the direct road to Germany from Cham- 
pagne passed likewise through Vaucouleurs. 

Although the people of this border Seigneury 
belonged nominally to the King, it will be well 
understood that, being where they were, they practi- 
cally had no Seigneur at all to whom they could 
look for protection. With Burgundian and Armagnac, 
Lorrainer or German, traversing their district at will, 
sometimes one being the stronger, sometimes the 
other, they virtually remained in the position of 
being the vassals of nobody. 

Many a time in her childhood Joan saw men flying 
from their foes through her native village, and on 
several occasions she succoured the wounded, yielding 
up her own bed to some unhappy sufferer, and sleeping 



252 The France of Joan of Arc 

in the barn. Upon one occasion her father and mother 
were compelled to fly from their home before a party 
of marauding soldiery. When they returned they 
found their house burned to the ground and all their 
possessions stolen ; even the village church had been 
destroyed by fire. 

Being brought up in the midst of scenes like this, 
we can imagine something of what Joan intended to 
convey when she talked of *' the pity that there was in 
the country of France." 

It was *'a pity" to which she was but too well 
accustomed, a pity which she and all the dwellers 
in that border-land were compelled to meet with 
patient resignation. 

The family of Jacques Dare — the name was not 
written '' d'Arc " until a later period — consisted of 
his wife and five children — three girls and two sons. 
His wife's name was Isabelle Rom^e, this name 
Romee having been often assumed in the time of 
the Middle Ages by those who had made the pil- 
grimage to Rome. The sons were named Jacques 
and Pierre, and Joan was the youngest of the three 
daughters. One of the sons was subsequently en- 
nobled under the name of Du Lis, when he was 
granted the symbolical arms of a star and three 
ploughshares to denote his humble origin. 

It has been customary to describe Joan as a girl 
who was in the habit of going out to the fields to 
herd her father's sheep, but her own evidence, given 
before her judges at Rouen, proves this to have been 
a fallacy. Being questioned as to whether she had 
learned any art or trade, she replied : 

'' Yes, and that her mother had taught her to sew, 



Charles and the Maid 253 

and that she did not believe that there was any woman 
in Rouen who could teach her anything more in that 
respect. She did not go to the fields to keep the 
sheep or other beasts. Since she had been of an 
age to understand anything she had not kept them ; 
if she had done so before that time she had no recol- 
lection of it. She had never been taught to read 
or write, and her instruction in religion had been 
given her by her mother alone." 

That she was both good-hearted and religiously 
inclined was proved by a village girl named Hau- 
mette, who was the friend of her girlhood. She 
was simple and sweet-tempered ; spun, did the house- 
work, and did as other girls do — went often to church, 
and to the holy shrines. Haumette, who said that 
she had often slept with Joan in good friendship, 
stated also that Joan went often to confession, and, 
being very modest, would blush upon being twitted 
upon going too often to the church. 

As for her kindly disposition, we have already 
mentioned how she was in the habit of giving up 
her own bed to wounded soldiers. These were not, 
however, the only ones to whom she showed her 
charitable and kind disposition, as a peasant described 
how in his childhood she had nursed him in his ill- 
ness. 

As Joan grew up, she was both handsome and 
robust in person, and remained pure in mind. Being 
born, however, in a country rich in legends, her mind 
became imbued with stories of the apparitions of the 
saints, and likewise of the fairies who haunted its 
woods and valleys. 



CHAPTER XX 

Joan's Debut 

1429 

Among the legends of those who dwelt upon the 
borders of the forests of the Vosges was one to 
the effect that a great wood of oak-trees was the 
resort of fairies who were known as ** Les Dames." 
These **good ladies," who were the mistresses of 
the woods, particularly affected a pellucid spring 
near a great beech-tree— they were, in fact, naiads, 
the water-nymphs of the pagans. In honour of 
these naiads, who were supposed for their sins to 
be no longer able to assume their bodily forms, the 
girls and boys of the neighbourhood of Dom-Remy 
were wont to repair to the sylvan glades, to hang 
up crowns of flowers on the hoary beech and dance 
around its bole. 

Although the village Cure repaired yearly to the 
fountain, to say a Mass to exorcise these woodland 
divinities, his action was only the more calculated 
to impress the reality of their existence upon the 
youthful mind of Joan. It was a poetic belief, this 
of the nymphs that haunted the woodland glades, the 
running waters, and in Joan's poetic mind they assumed 
the actual shapes given to it by her creative ideas, 

254 



Joan's D^but 255 

In a war-worn country, in which savage men 
revelled in deeds of bloodshed, it came as balm to 
the young girl's mind to imagine that some super- 
natural beings, beneficent rather than belligerent, were 
ever at her elbow, ready, perchance, to give soothing 
aid to harassed mortals in their distress. 

It was but one step from the fauns and fairies that 
dwelt in the flower-strewn openings of the trees, the 
naiads that laved their shining forms in the glistening 
fountain, to the blessed saints, the celestial beings, 
the good spirits that are our guardian angels. 

If the ones were real, why not the others? To 
the virgin-maid of Dom-Remy real indeed became 
these blessed beings from celestial spheres, creatures 
who, by their power and glorious radiance, paled the 
miserable actualities of this wretched world with 
visions of a heaven beyond. 

From the religious teachings of her pious mother, 
well was the maiden aware of the great deeds done by 
women in the past. While wandering in the woods 
and vaguely hoping that a liberator might be found 
for the distressed country in which she dwelt, the 
half-formed hope sprang into existence that God might 
in His goodness select her as that liberator. 

Why should not she be perchance permitted to do 
something as grand as the Biblical Judith, who saved 
her country by cutting off the head of Holofernes ? 
Did not Sainte Marguerite assist Saint Michael in 
trampling the Devil, in form of a dragon, under-foot ? 
Had not Sainte Marguerite also, after driving off the 
Devil by making the sign of the cross in his face, cut 
off her hair and escaped from her husband's house 
clothed as a man ? Why should not she, Jeanne, the 



256 The France of Joan of Arc 

village maid, imitate the example of this glorious 
woman, and fight in the good cause ? It was nothing 
new for women to take up the sword, even at that 
time. Does not Enguerrand de Monstrelet relate 
how the Bohemian women of the Hussites armed 
themselves and fought for their religion as fiercely as 
the men ? indeed, the chronicler says, ** like devils 
(ainsi que diables)." In how many sieges had not 
women of every degree mounted the ramparts to repel 
the invader? We have just related the gallant 
defence of her chateau made by that brave lady La 
Dame de Roche-Guyon. 

To aid Joan in her dreams came the remembrance 
of the fact that, while all the world was saying that 
France had been lost by a woman, Isabeau the Queen, 
there was an old prophecy of the Wizard Merlin that 
it would also be saved by a woman. In Lorraine and 
the districts adjoining, this old prophecy had been 
modified and improved into '' France would be saved 
by a virgin maid from the hoary oak wood in the 
marches of Lorraine." Since she was a virgin maid 
from the very district named, might not the prophecy 
apply to herself.'* 

With these ideas becoming ever stronger in her 
mind, as Joan was one day loitering in her garden 
near the village church, she received her first super- 
natural warning. Between herself and the church 
she beheld a brilliant light, from the midst of which 
came a voice, saying : " Joan, be a virtuous and good 
girl, and go to the church frequently." Her second 
vision, which occurred not long after, was more 
remarkable. Several shining figures of noble appear- 
ance were suddenly beside her, Of these, one was of 



Joan's D^but 257 

a wise-looking being who had wings upon his 
shoulders. This sage prudhomme distinctly in- 
structed her as to her mission, saying : *' Joan, go to 
the aid of the King of France, and thou wilt return to 
him his kingdom." 

To this the awe-stricken village girl replied : 
** Messire, I am only a poor girl, and neither know 
how to ride nor how to lead men-at-arms." 

The winged Archangel Michael, whom Joan had 
now recognised, thereupon answered : ** Go to Messire 
de Baudricourt, the Captain of Vancouleurs, and 
he will cause thee to be led to the King. Sainte 
Catherine and Sainte Marguerite will come to thine 
aid." 

The heavenly beings left her, and Joan wept. 
However she soon saw Saint-Michael again, when the 
mighty Archangel talked to her of the pity that there 
was in the Kingdom of France, and encouraged her 
to perform her mission. Many other saints of both 
sexes, luminous creatures wearing golden crowns, now 
visited her frequently, and when they left her the 
maiden would weep that they had not taken her with 
them. 

The frequent apparition of these angels and saints 
had an immense effect upon the young girl. She, 
who had always been so retiring and modest, and who 
had never listened to any other commands than those 
of her father and mother, now began to think seriously 
of leading armed warriors to the tented field, while 
obeying only her celestial monitors. She must leave 
the sound of those church bells that she cherished, 
leave her garden and her birds that fed from her 
hand, leave her father, mother, sisters, friends, and 



258 The France of Joan of Arc 

boldly sally forth into the world to obey the divine 
behest. 

Several years, however, elapsed, four or five in all, 
before Joan, then aged almost nineteen, eventually 
was to leave her home for the first time. In the 
meantime, she had been forced to undergo a constant 
struggle in her humble dwelling at Dom-Remy, the 
authority of her parents being opposed to that of her 
celestial visitants. While all her saints, and especially 
Saint Michael, urged the maiden to take up arms and 
ride about the country, her father — good, honest soul! — 
swore by all his saints that, rather than see his 
daughter go traipsing about with a parcel of men-at- 
arms he would drown her with his own hands. 

As an inducement to stay at home, Joan was 
offered a husband, the wise people of Dom-Remy 
having decided that marriage was what was necessary 
to bring the foolish girl to her right senses and restore 
the balance of her ideas. 

When Joan would have none of the husband 
proposed, a respectable young fellow from the neigh- 
bourhood, her parents put the young man up to 
bringing an action of breach of promise against her. 
He summoned her before the ecclesiastical judge of 
the city of Toul, alleging a betrothal in childhood. 
To the astonishment of all who knew her, the modest 
Joan did not hesitate to go to Toul and plead in her 
own defence. It had been imagined that rather 
than take so bold a step she would have allowed 
judgment to go against her by default, and permitted 
herself to be married. 

Joan found a friend at last, in the shape of an 
uncle, whom she had been able to convince not only 



Joan's D^but 259 

of her sincerity but the sacredness of her cause. It 
was, however, only by a trick that Joan was able to 
join her uncle when he offered to take her to the Sire 
de Baudricourt, the Captain of Vaucouleurs. His 
wife was about to be confined, and it was upon the 
pretence that he required his niece's services at the 
critical moment that her uncle was able to convey her 
to his dwelling. The peasant then went to Vaucouleurs 
to ask permission to take her there, but the first visit 
of Joan's uncle to de Baudricourt was not a success, as 
the valiant Captain roughly told him that the best 
thing that he could do would be to ''give the 
wench a good smacking and take her back to her 
father." 

In spite of this rebuff, Joan insisted upon being 
taken to Baudricourt. She took a tender farewell of 
all her friends in the village, with the exception of 
Haumette, to whom she could not bear to say good- 
bye, and went to Vaucouleurs, where she arrived clad 
in her rough peasant-girl's clothing, and went to 
lodge with the wife of a wheelwright of her acquaint- 
ance. 

The Sire de Baudricourt was a very great lord, 
and when he saw the robust peasant-girl appear 
before him, in spite of his rough advice to her uncle, 
he was astonished. Still more astounded was this 
noble when, in earnest tones which compelled him 
to listen, she addressed him : 

" Sir," said Joan, " I come to you on behalf of 
our Lord, in order that you may send word to the 
Dauphin not to risk a battle with his enemies, because 
in the middle of Lent his Lord will send him succour. 
The Kingdom does not belong to the Dauphin, but 



26o The France of Joan of Arc 

to his Lord ; none the less his Lord desires that the 
Dauphin should become King and have this Kingdom 
in his keeping." 

The worthy Captain of Vaucouleurs stared in 
amazement, and so did those around him, but their 
amazement increased when this handsome country 
girl who, for all her boldness of speech, did not appear 
by any means bold or brazen-faced, calmly continued : 
** I would also have you assure the Dauphin that, 
notwithstanding his enemies, he shall be made King, 
for I will lead him to be consecrated." 

The Sire de Baudricourt did not know what to 
make of it, and well can we understand his perplexity. 
He sent for the Cur6 of Vaucouleurs, and expressed 
to him his fears that the Devil was at the bottom of it 
all, when the Cur6 agreed with him thoroughly. 

*' What, then, do you think we had better do about 
it ? " inquired the nobleman. 

'* I suggest, Messire, that you come with me while 
I exorcise her to find out if she is a witch," replied the 
Cur^. 

Accordingly the great Captain of the Seigneury 
and the Cur6 of the parish, armed with all his holy 
instruments, repaired, not without a certain amount of 
trepidation on their part, to the wheelwright's house. 
While the Captain's guard remained at the door, 
accompanied by only one or two gentlemen they 
entered the building, where they found Joan. Then, 
spreading his stole out before him as a protection, 
and having sprinkled holy water freely around, sq that 
he might not be suddenly flown away with to regions 
of darkness, the good Cur6 valiantly adjured the very 
suspicious peasant-girl, if she were a witch and 



Joan^s D^but 261 

possessed of the Devil, to go quietly away without 
doing any harm. 

So frank, however, appeared the supposed witch, 
so certain, moreover, of what she said, so lucid in her 
replies, that, although de Baudricourt could not at 
once make up his mind to take the serious step of 
sending her to the Dauphin, both he and the Cure 
decided that there was no harm in her, and that 
perhaps there might be more truth in her words than 
at first appeared. 

While Joan was in despair at the delay, the people 
all began to believe firmly in the sanctity of her 
mission, and two gentlemen of distinction, one young, 
the other somewhat older, who came to banter her, 
thinking her fair game for sport, were quite won over 
to her side. These were the Sires Jean de Metz and 
Bertram de Poulengy. 

The former began by teasing her : *' Well, my 
dear, so the King will be driven out, and we shall all 
have to become Englishmen, I hear ? " 

Joan met this badinage good-temperedly, but soon 
became serious and emphatic, saying how grieved 
she was that she could obtain no aid from Baudricourt, 
for that even if she walked all across France, and 
wore her feet to the bone, it was imperative that she 
should join the Dauphin by Mid-Lent. 

'* For," she said, '* no one in this world, neither 
King, nor Dues, nor daughter of the King of Scotland 
can retake this Kingdom of France. There is only 
for him help to be found in myself Yet much rather 
would I remain to spin by the side of my poor mother, 
for this is not my work. Yet must I go and must I 
do it, for so it is that the Lord wills." 



262 The France of Joan of Arc 

The two nobles were quite convinced. They gave 
her their hands, and promised to go with her to the 
King. 

In the meantime Baudricourt had himself sent off 
to the Dauphin to demand permission to send to him 
this extraordinary girl. But, while waiting for a reply, 
he took Joan with him to see the ruling Due de 
Lorraine, Charles I., the father-in-law of Rene d'Anjou. 
The Due Charles, who was ill, wished to consult Joan, 
doubtless thinking that he would obtain a charm 
which would cure his sickness. Joan, who knew of 
the immoral life that this Prince was leading with the 
Lady Alizon du May, quietly informed him that what 
he had better do was to become reconciled to God by 
becoming reconciled to his wife. Charles, who was 
not in the least offended at her outspokenness, told 
Joan that she had all his good wishes. With this 
encouragement Joan returned to Vaucouleurs, where 
she found a messenger from the Dauphin saying that 
she might be sent to him. 

The people of Vaucouleurs were now all the more 
predisposed to believe in the mission of the peasant- 
girl of Dom-Remy, from the circumstance that she 
had announced the defeat of the Battle of the fierrings 
on the very day of that encounter. Accordingly they 
banded themselves together, and bought her clothes 
and a horse. De Baudricourt, for his part, presented 
the girl with a sword, which he very much doubted 
if she would either know how or have the courage 
to use. 

The two gentlemen above mentioned had an- 
nounced their willingness, with a few men-at-arms, 
to escort Joan to Charles VI L, and all was ready 



Joan^s Debut 263 

for her departure, when she was put to a terrible 
proof. Her parents arrived from Dom-Remy half 
distracted, and by every means in their power 
endeavoured to prevent her departure. Prayers, 
supplications, orders, threats, curses, all were in vain ; 
nothing could shake Joan from her purpose. Her 
will could not be bent, and although she grieved for 
the distress of those so dear to her, she could not 
be induced to remain at Vaucouleurs. She departed 
with her escort of five or six men-at-arms, of whom 
two were Jean de Metz and Bertram de Poulengy, 
on February 13, 1429. 

There was considerable danger for a young and 
attractive girl thus to trust herself alone in the 
company of a body of unknown soldiers for a ride 
all across France, and, recognising this danger, Joan 
from the first clothed herself in man's attire, which 
promised her greater security from possible outrage, 
as well as being more convenient for the saddle. Her 
greatest safeguard, however, at this the outset of her 
career, was her very purity and the sacredness of 
her mission, which made her seem half divine to her 
lawless companions. Although she was young and 
beautiful, one of the young gentlemen who accom- 
panied her declared at her trial that even while lying 
by her side no evil thought ever entered his head. 

We have said that Joan's companions, the men-at- 
arms, thought her half divine, but there is no doubt 
that they also imagined her to be half a witch. Never- 
theless, during the eleven days that their journey 
lasted, they became much attached to their girl com- 
panion. The country being full of armed men, the 
small party was at times in considerable danger, in 



264 The France of Joan of Arc 

spite of which she caused the men-at-arms considerable 
anxiety by her frequent delays in order to hear Mass 
when passing churches on her way. 

Her arrival was expected at Chinon, where Charles 
VII. was, and quite near that place some of those 
about the Prince endeavoured to waylay this so-called 
Pucelle, suspected by the opposing courtiers of being 
an unfriendly emissary from the Due de Lorraine. 
From this ambuscade, however, Joan and her soldier- 
comrades escaped by the purest chance. Although 
the party of Yolande, that of Anjou, was certainly 
fortified by the arrival of an inspired maiden, who 
came with the sanction, openly expressed, of Charles 
of Lorraine, the opposing influences in the Court of 
Charles VII. were very great against the reception by 
the King of *' this impostor — this witch." 

For several days serious debates were carried on 
concerning her in the Council, and, had it not been 
for Queen Yolande of Sicily and her daughter. Queen 
Marie, Joan might never have been allowed to see the 
young King at all. But while the opposing courtiers 
were purposely creating delay, by sending all the way 
back to Lorraine to inquire if Joan were indeed as 
virtuous as she represented herself, messengers arrived 
from Dunois and the people of Orleans saying that 
they wished her to be sent to them. By the two 
Queens' advice Charles then consented to receive the 
girl whom his favourites sneered at. Great was the 
assemblage which surrounded the Dauphin Charles on 
a night at the end of February 1429. 

While the great hall was illumined by numberless 
torches, many great Seigneurs and three hundred 
other Knights were present. All were curious to be- 




THE EXCHANGE OF RAIMENT. 



265 



Joan^s Debut 267 

hold one who might possibly be inspired but who, if 
not a mere arrant impostor, was more likely to prove 
a witch. The greater number of those assembled 
openly expressed their wishes to see the sorceress un- 
masked, and, the better to ensure this effect, they 
disguised him whom they called their King in the 
garb of one of his own Knights. Those who expected 
the eighteen-year-old girl to be disconcerted were, 
however, sadly disappointed. Instead of an ugly 
crone they beheld a pretty girl, well built, with a good 
figure, one whose expression was amiable and the 
tones of whose voice were sweet and penetrating. 

Modest and humble in her bearing, although with 
no signs of alarm, Joan stood for a moment in the 
midst of the brilliant assembly, and then she did a 
wonderful thing, one which has never been denied 
even by her enemies. Casting a glance in the direc- 
tion of a group of Knights, she moved swiftly towards 
them, and, brushing past those in her way, advanced 
to Charles VII., she threw herself at his feet, and 
grasped him round the knees. 

" Gentil Dauphin, j'ai nom Jehanne la Pucelle 
(Gentle Dauphin, I am called Joan the Maid)." Such 
was her greeting to the Prince. In vain he main- 
tained that he was not the Prince she sought — that 
she must seek the King elsewhere. 

Not in the least abashed, and disregarding the 
title of King, which she did not recognise, Charles not 
having been crowned, Joan continued : '' Gentil 
Dauphin, the King of the Heavens informs you, 
through me, that you will be consecrated and crowned 
at Reims, and you will be the Lieutenant of the King 
of the Heavens, who is the King of France." 
16 



268 The France of Joan of Arc 

Charles then took her a little apart to speak to 
him, when those who were near enough were astonished 
to hear her say : ** I tell thee, on behalf of the Messiah, 
that thou art the real heir of France and the son of the 
Kingr 

In this remarkable manner did Joan pronounce the 
legitimacy of Charles VII. 



CHAPTER XXI 
Joan^s Exploits at Orleans 

May 1429 

In addition to the marvellous manner in which Joan 
recognised the Dauphin, there are various other 
seemingly supernatural circumstances related concern- 
ing her at this epoch, which have been gathered from 
the manuscripts containing the depositions made at 
her trial. One of these is to the effect that, the better 
to assure Charles VII. of his legitimacy, she recalled 
to him a circumstance known only to himself. This 
was that one morning, in his oratory, he had demanded 
from God ** grace to recover his Crown, if he were 
the legitimate heir," and, further, that he had prayed 
that he might not fall captive into his enemies' hands, 
but be able to find a refuge in Spain or with the King 
of Scotland. 

One remarkable incident, which greatly impressed 
the popular mind and caused her to be looked 
upon by many in the light of a prophetess, was as 
follows. A soldier, perceiving that Joan was handsome 
and desirable, brutally expressed his desire to possess 
her, swearing at the same time by the name of God. 
Thereupon Joan reproved him sadly. " Alas ! how 

can you take God's name in vain like that ? and you, 

269 



270 The France of Joan of Arc 

too, so near your end ! " Almost immediately after 
this occurrence, the soldier fell into the castle moat 
and was drowned. 

The numerous enemies of Joan declared, however, 
that if she were indeed inspired with the gift of 
prophecy she had it from the Devil, and these insisted 
that she must be examined by a commission of 
Bishops. For this purpose Joan was sent to Poitiers, 
where the Archbishop of Reims, Chancellor of* France 
for Charles VII., summoned a number of Doctors of 
Theology, belonging to the University of that place, 
and some monks, to question the Pucelle. 

To this commission Joan related all her spiritual 
visions and her messages from the saints. One monk 
— a Dominican — observed to her : *' Joan, you say 
that God wishes to deliver the people of France ; if 
such be His will, what need is there for men-at-arms ? " 
Joan was usually pithy and clever in her replies to 
inconvenient questions, but upon this occasion her reply 
can scarcely, we think, have convinced the monk ; it 
was : '' Ah, Mon Dieu ! the men-at-arms will fight 
and God will give them the victory." 

Her response was somewhat smarter to a Pro- 
fessor of Theology who spoke a bad Limousin 
French. His name was Seguin, and he was described 
as a very bitter man. When Seguin had been heck- 
ling Joan for some time, he asked : '' And in what 
tongue did these supposed heavenly voices speak to 
you?" "■ One far better than yours," answered Joan 
pertly. Seguin thereupon became enraged, and told 
the pert maiden that, without giving a sign from God, 
she could not expect to be believed in. Judging by 
after-events, Joan's reply was now really admirable : 



Joan's Exploits at Orleans 271 

** I did not come to Poitiers to work signs or miracles ; 
my sign will be the raising of the siege of Orleans. 
Only let me be given men-at-arms, few or many, and 
I will go there." 

While the Doctors were thus bullying Joan the 
people of Poitiers, especially the women of all ranks 
who visited her, accepted her without question, all 
declaring that she was certainly sent from God. The 
learned Doctors meanwhile, thinking to prove to Joan, 
by the book, that she could not possibly have a divine 
mission, made to her all sorts of quotations from 
scriptural works in support of their case. Asked what 
reply she could make to these lengthy citations, the 
village-girl from Dom-Remy, who was getting tired 
of this folly, answered very much to the point. 

** Listen ; there is more in God's book than in 
your books. I do not know A from B, but this I 
do know, that I come on behalf of God to cause the 
siege of Orleans to be raised, and to consecrate the 
Dauphin at Reims." 

The Judges were quelled, and when she said that 
she must take the preliminary step of writing to the 
English leaders to desist from the siege they took 
the pen on her behalf Joan dictated while the 
Doctors wrote, summoning the various commanders, 
Suffolk, Glansdale, an3^ others by name, in the name 
of God, to leave the beleaguered city and to retire 
to England. 

While two more messengers arrived from Dunois, 
demanding that the maid from Dom-Remy should 
be sent without delay, the Doctors who had been 
examining Joan requested the opinion of a great 
dignitary of the Church, the 5 Archbishop of Embrun, 



272 The France of Joan of Arc 

as to whether or no she should be employed. This 
sapient prelate replied that, Satan being unable to 
make a compact with virgins, it all depended upon 
the fact if she were a virgin or no. Joan having been 
handed over to the Queen of Sicily and a committee 
of matrons, these great ladies declared her to be in- 
deed a pure maiden whose honour was intact, and, 
this matter having been settled in Joan's favour, it 
was decided at length to send her to Orleans. As 
a preliminary step she was fitted out with a war- 
horse, armour, a sacred banner, and a household of 
her own. For her squire she was supplied with an 
excellent middle-aged Knight, Jean de Daulon by 
name ; her two pages were of noble birth. She had 
two Heralds, a confessor named Jean Pasquerel, two 
valets, and other followers, among whom were her 
brothers, Pierre and Jean Dare. 

Jean de Daulon, who was a particularly honourable 
and trustworthy gentleman, had been sent to her as 
steward by the Bastard of Orleans, and, for a peasant- 
girl, Joan was indeed now honourably equipped. 

Her sacred banner was of beautiful white silk. 
Upon this a white field scattered with fleur-de-lys bore 
a representation of God holding the world in His 
hand, the image of the Almighty being flanked with 
two angels, each holding a fleur-de-lys. 

The armour with which Joan had been supplied 
was white, like silver ; she carried a little battle-axe 
and a sword, which latter she obtained in a mar- 
vellous manner. Having declared that a sword would 
be found hidden behind the altar in the church of 
Sainte Catherine at Fierbois, Joan caused search to 
be made, when the sword was found where she had 



Joan's Exploits at Orleans 273 

indicated. Having girt herself with her sword Joan, 
who had at this period a horror of shedding blood, 
declared that she never would use it. To this re- 
solution, as she became hardened with scenes of 
warfare, the Pucelle did not, however, adhere. Joan 
eventually broke this holy sword, not while using it 
to strike down her foes, but when she was striking 
with its flat side a girl of bad character whom she 
found in the camp. As it could not be mended so 
as to be made again serviceable, Joan was compelled 
to procure another sword. 

That the peasant-girl, decked out in her trappings 
as a Knight, made indeed an attractive picture when 
mounted on her great black charger we learn from 
a letter to his mother written by Gui de Laval, a 
young noble related to Gilles de Retz. He describes 
her as ** seeming something quite divine both to see 
and to hear." 

With her '' gracieux paige" bearing her banner 
before her, after first addressing the priests and com- 
manding them to make prayers to God, Laval de- 
scribes her as giving the order to march in the words, 
**Tirez avant! Tirez avant!" while carrying her little 
axe in her hand. 

While Joan, with a considerable armed following, 
is on the line of march to Orleans let us consider 
the position and numbers of the force before that 
place. That it was not such a terrible feat that Joan 
was to be called on to perform becomes evident when 
we learn that the English troops had now melted 
away to at the outside three thousand men. Probably 
there were not left more than two thousand or two 
thousand five hundred, and although, had these been 



274 The France of Joan of Arc 

all gathered together in one place, they would have 
formed a formidable body, it must be remembered 
that they were scattered about in small parties in the 
various bastilles. 

One of the early causes of the depletion of the 
English force had been that, on the death of the 
Earl of Salisbury, all of the men-at-arms personally 
engaged by him had considered themselves at liberty 
to depart. Then the Burgundians had left also, and 
during the long winter many had died or become 
incapacitated by wounds or sickness. At the end of 
the siege, when the chief of the English works was 
forced, it was found not to contain more than five 
hundred men, of whom a good number were French- 
men. These five hundred represented the garrisons 
of several of the other bastilles, who had been driven 
out and had taken refuge in this principal fort. 

It will be wondered why it was that, without 
waiting for the advent of Joan of Arc, the defenders 
had not relieved themselves. They had among them 
a number of noted leaders. There was the Mar^chal 
Gilles de Retz, with the Bretons, and there were also 
Dunois, La Hire, and Xaintrailles. There was the new 
Comte d'Armagnac and six or seven other Gascon 
commanders, including the Mar^chal de Saint-Severe. 
Under these, apart from the citizens of Orleans, were 
enrolled a quantity of nobles from the vicinity, and 
others who had come from all parts of France. With 
all of the men-at-arms and others at the beck and call 
of these leaders, surely they would have been strong 
enough, had they made a determined effort, to drive 
the small English force away, and no miraculous maid 
should have been necessary to help them. 



Joan^s Exploits at Orleans 27 j 

Why, then, was it that they made no such effort ? 
To this there are two replies. The first is that, 
since Agincourt and various later victories, the English 
had become greatly feared. The other, and it is 
the principal one, is that the French had no cohesion 
— they were not united. 

The various leaders had no supreme chief. They 
did not even recognise the authority of Charles VII. 
as King of France; much less, then, would one of them 
subordinate himself to another. If they could indeed 
be said to be fighting for any one in particular, it 
was for the absent Prince, Charles d' Orleans, but 
he was far away in England, under restraint, and 
unable to give them orders. 

Being thus leaderless and full of divisions and 
jealousies, although numerically so much superior to 
the English that they could easily have turned the 
tables by besieging the English in their bastilles, they 
had no chance of success. If the Marechal de Retz, 
with the Bretons, made an attack upon one fort, 
instead of helping him, the Marechal de Saint-Severe 
with the Gascons, went off in another direction. 
Of all the French commanders present in Orleans, 
the Bastard of Orleans was undoubtedly the most 
able ; but no one would obey Dunois. 

Each of the leaders — and all were little better than 
ferocious savages — fought in his own savage, untrained 
fashion, merely according to his own ideas, and for 
his own hand alone. 

Had it not been for the coming of Joan, the siege 
therefore would not have lasted much longer, for the 
various French commanders, getting tired of starving 
in Orleans, would have marched out in turn between 



276 The France of Joan of Arc 

the English bastilles, and gone off to ravage some 
section of the country where food was more plentiful. 

The arrival of Joan supplied, however, a new 
element at Orleans — a supreme commander, who 
came with the mandate of Heaven, and who must, 
therefore, be obeyed. It was an age when men 
worshipped the Virgin more than God. Joan was 
a virgin, and by this time popularly supposed to be 
one sent from Heaven — in her person the greater 
number of these savage warriors recognised an avatar 
of the Blessed Mother of Christ. Therefore they 
were inclined to obey her, not as a woman, but as a 
saint. 

That, with their narrow ideas, they yet endeav- 
oured at first to trick her is nothing — that they soon 
obeyed her is evident. 

Her power became so complete over these 
barbarous soldiers that they obeyed her even when 
she ordered them to send away their gay female 
companions, the face of one of whom Joan slapped 
violently, while upbraiding her. 

She soon effected such a revolution in the morals 
and manners of the camp that men who never pre- 
viously opened their lips without a blasphemy did 
not even venture to utter an oath in her presence. 
The story about her allowing the Gascon, La Hire, 
to swear by his walking-stick is no farce, but true. 
This ferocious brigand humbly begged her to allow 
him to swear by something. 

*' Very well, then," said Joan ; " you may swear by 
your stick." 

The extraordinary remarks and prayers of this 
irreligious Gascon have come down to us. 



Joan^s Exploits in Orleans 277 

"If God transformed Himself into a man-at-arms 
He would be a pillager." 

And again, '' Sire Dieu, I pray Thee to do for 
La Hire what La Hire would do for Thee if Thou wert 
a Captain, and La Hire were God ! " 

When Joan was able to subdue a ruffian like this, and 
to lead him, with all his fellows, to partake of the Holy 
Communion, must she not indeed have seemed to all 
to possess some supernatural qualities ? Must not 
we, even in this sceptical age, still think that she was 
not as other women ? And yet what great service 
was she rendering to France by relieving Orleans, 
and by putting upon the throne a King who was no 
better than his fellows ? Why should we suppose, 
judging by the career of Charles VH., that an Almighty 
Power should have desired that Charles, rather than' 
his nephew Henry VL, should become seated on the 
throne of France, which had been so ably occupied 
for a time by his father, Henry V. ? The continued 
English Government of either Orleans or the whole of 
France would probably have given far greater security 
to life and property than did, subsequently, that of 
Charles VH. Thinking this out, and, moreover, the 
fact that no heavenly aid came to Joan in the end, 
when she most needed it, remembering also that 
Charles VH. never lifted a hand to save or ransom 
her, it becomes almost impossible for us to believe 
that Joan was either inspired or endowed with a divine 
mission. She was simply a good and extraordinary 
girl, with a great force of character, one who saw 
visions, and who succeeded for a time because she 
firmly believed in them herself 

Believing in her visions, her voices, of whatever 



278 The France of Joan of Arc 

kind they may have been, this shrinking girl, who 
formerly blushed at a word, became endowed with 
the qualities of a leader, especially that of personal 
courage. Her good common sense was remarkable, 
and when it dictated a certain mode of action it proved 
successful — when others did distinctly that which she 
told them not to do, they failed. 

Joan, moreover, knew her own limitations ; the 
task which she had set herself to perform was to 
relieve Orleans first, then to crown the King. Having 
done this, she declined all further responsibility, and 
wished to go home. Had she been allowed to do so, 
she might have been provided with a husband, possibly 
after her feats a noble would have been glad to marry 
her ; she might have been the mother of warlike 
children, to carry down her glorious name to posterity, 
while emulating their mother's noble deeds. 

The voices, however, which in the first instance 
prompted her, evidently lost their power over her 
imagination ; they were not loud enough to endow 
her with sufficient determination to resist those who 
insisted that she must continue to take a leading part 
in the war after her task was done. Therefore, for 
the brave and handsome girl there were to be no 
womanly joys, no husband, no children, no home ! 
Instead she was, poor creature, to find herself deserted 
by all, heavenly and human alike. Deserted by her 
saints, by those whom she had come to save, by the 
wretched King whom she had placed upon his throne, 
by the ecclesiastics of the Church whose tenets she 
had upheld, the sole reward for her valour was that 
her tender limbs were consigned to the horrible flames 
in the market-place of Rouen ! 



Joan^s Exploits at Orkans 279 

As Joan, with her sacred banner deployed before 
her by her gentle page, proudly rode to Orleans, who 
could have anticipated for her such a terrible fate ? 
French and English alike beheld her arrival with a 
superstitious dread. Dunois rode out with all his 
chivalry to meet her, for the English were not strong 
enough to prevent him ; moreover, she arrived by the 
southern side of the river, on which they were in the 
least force. 

She met Dunois with the grandiloquent words that 
she came from the King of Heaven, with heavenly 
help sent at the request of Saint Louis (Louis IX.), 
and Saint Charlemagne. The King of the Heavens 
had, she told the Bastard, had pity on the town of 
Orleans, and had not willed that the enemy should, at 
the same time, have possession of the body of the 
Due d'Orl^ans and of his city. 

It was a beautiful spring evening in the last days 
of April as Joan rode into the city. Upon her journey 
thither, being alone with men, Joan had at first slept 
in her armour, from which her tender limbs suffered 
terribly ; she was now, however, received as a woman 
in the bed of Charlotte, a daughter of Millet, the 
Treasurer of the Due d' Orleans. 

She had brought a convoy of provisions with 
her, but, with the exception of two hundred men, 
the army which had escorted her and them did not 
remain, but left at once for Blois. In spite of the 
departure of these troops, burning with martial ardour, 
the young girl endeavoured at once to persuade 
those in the city to follow her in an attack on the 
English fortified posts. According to the subsequent 
deposition of Dunois, her strength and powers of 



28o The France of Joan of Arc 

endurance were more than those of a woman : *' She 
seemed, at the least, an angel, a creature devoid of 
physical needs. She remained at times a whole day 
on horseback, without dismounting or eating or 
drinking, except at night a little bread and wine 
mixed with water." 

Not being allowed to attack immediately, Joan 
sent summonses to the English in the northern 
bastilles, and, crossing the bridge over the Loire, rode 
in person to summon Glansdale in the large southern 
fort to depart. 

In their fear of the sorceress, the English abused 
her vilely ; Sir William Glansdale called out to her 
that she was '' a cow-girl, a ribald woman, the 
prostitute of the Armagnacs!" And he detained 
her Herald a prisoner. 

Joan was not sufficiently a woman of the world to 
treat their insults with the contempt that they merited. 
They cut the poor girl to the quick, and she wept 
bitterly. That she had no personal animosity against 
the English is proved by the fact that she had written 
and asked them to join with the French in an expedi- 
tion to Jerusalem, and thus these cutting words hurt 
her all the more. When she heard the vile expression 
applied to herself of" la putain des Armagnacs," she 
defended herself from the imputation, calling God to 
witness that she was no such thing. 

When, however, she was informed that, thinking 
that to do so would break the power of her charm, 
Glansdale would burn her Herald, she regained her 
courage and threatened Glansdale with reprisals. 
Dunois had likewise some Heralds in his hands, and 
swore that he would kill them all. 



Joan's Exploits at Orleans 281 

The Herald was not burned, as, before taking so 
serious a step, Glansdale sent to consult the University 
of Paris about the matter of the efficacy of such a 
proceeding ; and in the meantime Joan sent another 
Herald with a cartel of defiance to Talbot, Earl of 
Shrewsbury. In this she told Talbot that, if he could 
take her, he could burn her and welcome. 

Dunois, going off to fetch back the army from 
Blois, left Joan in command at Orleans, where all 
obeyed her and followed her wherever she rode. She 
visited the fortifications of the city, and then, still 
followed by a crowd containing many women and 
children, rode to have a good look at the various 
English bastilles in turn. The English, from their 
ramparts, observed the warrior maid with interest, but 
made no effort to molest her or her following. 

While, in Orleans, the people were following Joan 
to the churches, and weeping with religious enthusiasm 
when she wept, at Blois Dunois met with resistance 
from the Archbishop of Reims, who would not at first 
send back the small army to Joan. He could not, 
however, help himself in the end, and Joan, followed 
by the priests and the people of the city, solemnly 
chanting hymns, went out and personally conducted 
this force into the city on May 4, 1429, the English 
again fearing to attack the witch. 

Joan now found that the leaders were endeavouring 
to act without her, in the matter of attacking an 
English force reported as advancing under Sir John 
Fastolfe. She became angry with Dunois, and said 
to him : '' Bastard, Bastard, if you do not inform me 
of the coming of Fastolfe, or if you let him pass with- 
out letting me know, I will have your head cut off! " 



282 The France of Joan of Arc 

The leaders still sought to deceive her, but Joan, 
even while sleeping with Charlotte Millet, could not be 
deceived. She jumped up in her bed, declaring that 
French blood was flowing, called for her arms and 
horse, and, after scolding her page for leaving her in 
the dark, galloped off, only to meet many wounded 
Frenchmen being carried into the city. 

Dunois, who had also not been informed of what 
was taking place, followed Joan. The fugitive French 
turned back, and, with Joan at their head, making 
a new attack upon the English fort from which they 
had been repulsed, took it by assault. During the 
combat, the first in which Joan was engaged, Talbot 
came with a relieving force to assist, but the victorious 
village-girl drove him back again to his lines. 

While rescuing the English prisoners from her 
brutal followers, who would have cut their throats, 
Joan wept to see lying dead upon the field so manv 
who had perished without confession. The next day 
she devoted to prayer and receiving the Communion, 
and while so employed those of the leaders who were 
jealous of Joan arranged again to deceive her, by 
making a different attack from that which they informed 
her they were about to make. Dunois, however, 
informed Joan of the real object of attack, which was 
the great Bastille Saint-Jean-le Blanc, situated to the 
south of the Loire, and the Pucelle was accordingly 
present to head the onslaught. 

This second combat of Joan's proved to be a day 
of most determined fighting on both sides. The 
English had at first concentrated their forces, and 
then, after burning the bastille which was to be 
attacked, had strongly occupied two others, called 



Joan^s Exploits at Orleans 283 

the Bastille des Augustlns and the Bastille des 
Tournelles. 

Joan headed the struggle at the Augustins, and, 
although it was eventually taken by her, she and 
La Hire were at first carried away back across the 
bridge of boats over the river by a large number 
of Frenchmen, who were driven back in a wild panic. 
She and La Hire extricated themselves, however, 
from the mass of fugitives, and, recrossing the river 
in boats with those whom they could rally, fell upon 
the seemingly victorious English in flank, and routed 
them. 

The fort of the Tournelles could not, however, 
be taken before night fell, and now once more the 
leaders endeavoured to act without Joan, they wishing 
alone to have the honour of capturing this bastille, 
around which there had been a whole day's desperate 
fighting. In the evening of that day, a fast-day, 
during the whole of which Joan had been without 
food, the Council assembled without her; and then 
the brave girl was falsely informed that, although the 
bulk of the French troops had been left encamped for 
the night before Les Tournelles, no further attack 
would be made until reinforcements came. Once more, 
however, Joan's spirit of prophecy had come to her 
aid, and she speedily disconcerted the disloyal leaders. 
Her Confessor, Frere Jean Pasquerel, deposed 
later that she met them calmly, with the words : *' You 
have been in your council, and I in mine ! " 

Then she ordered Brother Pasquerel to call her at 
daybreak and not to leave her, adding, '' I shall have 
plenty to do. Blood will flow from my body : I shall 
be wounded above the bosom." 
17 



284 The France of Joan of Arc 

We hope that the worthy Confessor was not merely 
drawing upon his imagination when recounting this 
incident, which is on a par with three or four already 
related in showing the girl's strange powers of 
divination. But, alas ! if any or all of them as recorded 
were true, why did not her spirit of prophecy warn 
her, in time to avert them, of the more serious dangers 
awaiting her in the future ? 

We now must be allowed a seeming digression, 
although in fact it refers to the Pucelle. Many an 
Englishman, wandering in an out-of-the-way district of 
France, may remember to have had his ears shocked 
and astonished by being assailed with insulting cries 
of ** Goddam ! " from the village urchins. We ourselves 
in our childhood, so long ago as in the year 1862, can 
remember to have been repeatedly thus insulted by 
the street-boys of Dunkirk in French Flanders. Some 
eight or ten years later, while residing with a respect- 
able Swiss family, we found it impossible to convince 
the members of that family that ** Goddam " was not 
among Englishmen an expression so continually used 
that it might almost as well have been ** Good 
morning " — indeed, to them it was almost synonymous 
with Englishman. 

Those dwellers on the Continent who, not knowing 
the meaning of what they are saying, so blithely cry 
out ''Goddam!" while meaning Englishman, would not, 
if asked, be in the least able to explain how the idea 
had been conceived, nor when it first originated. 
From a study of the history of Joan of Arc, we think 
that we could, however, enlighten them on the matter. 
That the expression must have been one commonly 
used by the English men-at-arms serving in the 



Joan^s Exploits at Orleans 285 

European wars before the time of Joan of Arc becomes 
evident on reading the deposition made at Joan's trial 
by Colette, the wife of the Treasurer Millet, at whose 
house Joan resided in Orleans. 

Upon the morning in May 1429 that Joan an- 
nounced to her Confessor that she would be wounded, 
Madame Millet endeavoured to retain her in the 
house, by informing her that she had a fine fish to 
give her, which had just been caught in the Loire, 
and which was in the pink of condition. We are 
inclined to think that they must have had salmon 
or trout in the Loire in those days, as, had this denizen 
of the Loire been a mere plebeian pike, it would not 
have been in condition in May. 

Whatever the fish, it was sufficiently attractive to 
excite Joan's interest, so much so that, after having 
admired it duly, she merrily remarked to the amiable 
Colette : '' Keep it, I pray, until this evening. Then, 
when I recross the bridge after having taken Les 
Tournelles, I will bring you back a * Godden ' with 
me, and he shall eat his share of it." 

As upon other occasions this word " Godden " (not 
" God-dam ") is found in Joan's mouth when speaking 
of Englishmen, we hope that it will be conceded that 
we have proved our point. 

Although duly awakened by her dutiful Chap- 
lain, duly armed by her pages and mounted, with 
the honest Daulon in attendance to squire her to 
the field of battle, it was not without a struggle that 
Joan escaped from the city of Orleans. For at the 
Porte de Bourgogne, or Burgundy Gate, her way was 
blocked by the Sire de Gaucourt, the King's Grand 
Master. While Gaucourt very impolitely barred the 



1^6 The France of Joan of Arc 

way, he refused to unbar the door for the passage of 
the Pucelle. 

Joan threatened in vain to force the exit with her 
men-at-arms, for the Grand Master would not budge. 
A furious crowd, however, supported Joan, and, 
while the Grand Master narrowly escaped with his 
life, the guard under his command stood aside and 
allowed the gate to be forced. 

In the ensuing assault upon the Bastille des 
Tournelles, after some furious fighting the French 
with Joan began to give way. Then, strong, lusty 
girl as she was, she seized a scaling-ladder, jumped 
down into the ditch of the work, put her ladder against 
the parapet and commenced to mount. An English 
archer at that moment drew on her from above, and, 
missing her head, shot Joan through the shoulder, a 
little above the bosom. She fell, and the English 
rushed down to secure her, but her people, rallying 
around Joan, managed to rescue her, carry her off, lay 
her on the grass, and remove her armour. The arrow 
had transfixed the shoulder ; but only when Joan saw 
how deep was the wound did she, like any other girl 
of her age, burst into tears. The arrow was pulled 
out, Joan regained her courage, had some oil ap- 
plied to the wound, and confessed her sins to her 
Chaplain. 

Joan refused to leave the field, but, while saying 
her prayers in a vineyard, was informed by Dunois 
that the assault had failed and that he was about to 
sound the order to retire. Joan begged him not to 
retreat, but to allow his men to rest and refresh them- 
selves with food and drink ; and this was done. Then 
Joan, forgetting her wound, returned with them to the 



Joan^s Exploits at Orleans 287 

assault, and at the same time Les Tournelles was 
attacked by another large party from the rear. 

Thus hardly pressed at the end of this second 
day's fighting, the Englishmen in the bastille were 
still valiantly holding their own, and the French losses 
were very heavy, when Joan had an inspiration. 
Calling a Basque soldier to her, she told him to take 
her sacred banner from the hands of her squire Jean 
de Daulon and with it to touch the parapet of the 
English earth-work. ''Then," she said, ''you can 
enter the bastille ; there will be no more difficulty." 

As Joan foretold, so matters were accomplished. 

The valiant Basque leapt down into the ditch and 
struck the wall of the parapet with the great silken 
banner. Awe-stricken at beholding the image of God 
and his supporting angels so close to them, the 
wearied English soldiers defending that part of the 
parapet drew back. "Enter now!" cried Joan. 
With a rush, the assailants raised their scaling-ladders 
to the wall and poured into the fort. Inside, however, 
the fighting continued hand to hand, in every square 
yard of ground, in every corner. 

Presently all of the inhabitants of Orleans, hastily 
repairing a broken arch of the bridge, came swarming 
over. The first to cross, on a mere gutter-spout, was 
a Knight of Saint John of Jerusalem, in full armour. 
When the English saw the multitude advancing they 
lost heart and head and cried out that the Archangel 
Michael was heading a host to assist Joan. They 
broke their ranks and scarcely made any more defence. 
Sir William Glansdale was, with others, escaping to 
another small bastille by a wooden bridge, when a 
cannon-ball broke it and he fell into the river. Then 



28S The France of Joan of Arc 

Joan, who saw him drowning, cried out to him, 
** Glansdale ! Glansdale ! you called me prostitute ! 
Ah ! how I pity your unfortunate soul ! " While the 
English leader was drowning, more and more men were 
pouring in over all sides of the earthworks, when the 
whole of the defenders of the Bastille des Tournelles, 
the greater number of whom were English, were 
stricken down and put to the sword. Not one was 
left alive for Joan to take home with her to share the 
awaiting fish dinner, and there was now not an 
Englishman left on the southern bank of the Loire. 



CHAPTER XXII 

Joan Fights, Conquers — and Fails 

1429— 1430 

On the day after the fall of Les Tournelles and the 
massacre of its defenders, all of the English in the 
forts on the northern side of the Loire evacuated their 
positions. Under the command of Talbot, Earl of 
Shrewsbury, and the Earl of Suffolk, they marched 
out and retreated in an orderly manner, while leaving 
behind them their sick, their prisoners, and their 
artillery. 

Joan had entered Orleans on April 29, and it 
was Sunday, May 8, 1429, when the English thus 
abandoned the siege, acknowledging themselves to 
have been defeated by a mere ignorant peasant-girl, 
one who did not know A from B. Joan gave orders 
that, as they retired voluntarily there was to be no 
pursuit, but, as they were moving out from their 
positions on that Sabbath morn, the Pucelle caused an 
altar to be raised in full sight of the retiring foe, and 
at this a solemn Mass was celebrated for the deliver- 
ance of the city of Orleans. The result of this 
remarkable success was that Joan's power became 
immensely increased. While many still believed that 

her victories were the result of her intimate con- 

289 



290 The France of Joan of Arc 

nection with the Devil, many others that she was 
inspired from on High, all alike were convinced that 
this young woman, who had worked such miracles, 
must be endowed with some kind of supernatural 
faculties. 

It was not likely that those of the defenders of 
Orleans who had been present in the city from the 
commencement of the seven months' siege, were going 
to confess that it was owing to their own ineptitude 
that they had failed themselves to drive off the be- 
siegers. Again, it was not likely that the English, 
whose prestige was so greatly lowered at the end of 
that siege, where until Joan's arrival they had had it 
all their own way, would confess that they had been 
defeated in an ordinary manner. Therefore, all alike, 
of both parties, agreed that Joan was possessed of 
something, be it the saints of heaven or be it Satan, 
lord of hell. 

All of the Christian world of the day began to 
give itself over to writing learned disquisitions on 
the subject of the Maid of Orleans. Arguments for 
and against her were published broadcast ; but even 
those written by the Priesthood of the Burgundian 
faction were, on the whole, more favourable to Joan 
than otherwise. 

Meanwhile, as the English had never as yet had 
the good sense to cause the consecration of their 
infant Henry VI., it was evident that the throne of 
France remained unoccupied, that it lay in the grasp 
of him who could the sooner get himself crowned. 
When we say that it was evident we mean that it 
was evident to one person only— to all the rest of 
the interested parties, English, Burgundian, or French, 



Joan Fights^ Conquers — and Fails 291 

It was not evident at all. The one person to whom 
it was evident was the one who alone possessed 
common sense — namely, Joan of Arc, the maid from 
the village of Dom-Remy, on the borders of Lorraine. 

The mixed councils of those opposed to Joan 
resulted therefore in delay. The favourite La Tr^- 
mouille recommended the siege of various small places 
near the Loire, while the Due d'Alengon demanded 
the immediate reconquest of his town of Alengon 
in Normandy. It Is related that at the siege of 
Alen9on, when the Due was afraid of commencing 
the assault, Joan said to this Prince of the Blood, 
** Ah ! gentll Due, art thou frightened ? Dost not 
know that I have promised thy wife to bring thee 
back to her safe and sound ? " 

The tide of success now swept on for France. 
The Earl of Suffolk was wounded and taken prisoner 
in a place called Jargeau, while Talbot was unable 
to reinforce Beaugency before It also fell Into the 
hands of his enemies. 

Meanwhile the Constable de RIchemont, the enemy 
of the King's favourites, being jealous of the reputa- 
tion of Joan, determined, In spite of all who opposed 
him, to emerge from his sulky retirement, and to take 
a hand In the game of hunting down the small English 
forces left in the field. 

Talbot was burning to retrieve, by a successful 
battle, his reputation lost before Orleans. He had 
been joined by Sir John Fastolfe, the conqueror at 
the Battle of the Herrings, and together they were 
wandering about in the province of Beauce, which 
lay between Orleans and Paris. In this thickly 
wooded country, as some members of the advanced 



292 The France of Joan of Arc 

guard of Richemont's army were galloping after a 
stag, they suddenly discovered Talbot's forces, of 
whose whereabouts they had been unaware. A quarrel 
at once took place between Talbot and Fastolfe. 
While this latter strongly urged that, with a beaten 
and discouraged force, it would be wiser to stand 
strictly on the defensive, the former was for making 
an attack upon the pursuing French forces. Mean- 
while, none of the usual precautions of fixing in the 
ground their sharp-pointed stakes were taken by the 
English archers, and the troops remained on the line 
of march as their leaders continued their angry dis- 
cussion. In the midst of this the French men-at- 
arms arrived in force, and charged the unprepared 
English, who, although Talbot made a furious re- 
sistance, were cut to pieces, and their leader taken, 
two thousand of the English being killed. 

From this field of Patay Sir John Fastolfe, and 
many others, fled. He was the Duke of Bedford's 
Grand Maitre d'Hdtel, and a Knight of the Garter, 
from which Order he was degraded on account of 
his conduct during this affair. Had Talbot but 
listened to his sensible advice matters might, however, 
have gone all the other way, and, this being recognised 
later. Sir John was rehabilitated in his dignities. 

The cruelties practised on the English prisoners 
of Patay, which battle took place on June 28, 1429, 
caused the tears of Joan to flow. With horror the 
humane girl beheld the French soldiers knocking on 
the head all of those who were not in a position to 
pay their ransom. 

Seeing one of these unfortunate men fall dying, 
Joan leapt from her horse, held his head in her lap. 



Joan Fights, Conquers— and Fails 293 

called a priest to hear his confession, and supported 
him in her arms until he died. 

Notwithstanding the presence of the Constable, 
it was to Joan that^ the people ascribed the victory 
of Patay, after which recruits flocked to her standard 
from all parts of the country. She now determined 
accordingly, in spite of the continued opposition of 
interested parties, to carry Charles VII. with her 
through English and Burgundian France to Reims. 
The indolence of the Prince himself was the greatest 
obstacle in the way, but when her forces had swelled 
to twelve thousand men, who echoed Joan's desire, 
the Dauphin was no longer able to resist the popular 
cry that he should be consecrated and anointed King. 

Just two months later than she had reached 
Orleans, Joan started from Gien with Charles, and, 
moving in a northerly direction, she passed by, with- 
out attacking it, the town of Auxerre, held by a 
garrison of Burgundians. Troyes, the place where 
the treaty disinheriting the Dauphin had been signed, 
was next reached by Joan's army, which was without 
artillery. The city was strongly held by both English 
and Burgundians, and all of the French leaders, with 
one exception, wished to give it a wide berth. An 
old Armagnac, named Magon, however, argued 
against this in the Council. He said that it was not 
on force of arms but on Joan's promises that all relied 
in this march to Reims ; if Joan therefore said that 
Troyes could be taken it would be taken ! Called 
to the Council, Joan first declared that a delay of 
three days would be sufficient, then, correcting her- 
self, asserted boldly, *'You can take the town 
to-morrow ! " 



294 The France of Joan of Arc 

With her standard in her hand she boldly led 
the way to the ditch without the walls, and ordered 
her men to fill it up. Every kind of portable object, 
such as doors, tables, fascines, beams, was hurled 
into the ditch. In spite of the artillery-fire and arrows 
of the garrison, this became filled up so fast that both 
the garrison and the inhabitants of the town began 
to imagine that they saw Saint Michael and all of 
Joan's saints aiding in the work. Around the magical 
standard their dazzled eyes beheld also swarms of 
golden butterflies. This settled the matter ! and ac- 
cordingly the commanders of the garrison sent Heralds 
to demand favourable terms for the surrender of the 
city. The advisers of Charles, glad to accept any 
terms to ensure such an easy victory, agreed incon- 
tinently, and without consulting Joan, to allow all 
those of the garrison to march out with everything 
that they possessed. When, in accordance with these 
easy terms, Joan beheld the English and Burgundians 
departing with long strings of French prisoners she 
could not bear the sight. She insisted that the King 
should pay the ransom of every one of these prisoners. 
How the money was procured to do this is not re- 
corded, but the captives were all bought off, and the 
English and Burgundian soldiers, glad to be rid of 
them, marched off joyfully with their pockets full of 
money. 

Eight days later, after first writing to Due PhiUppe 
of Burgundy, to beg him to bury the hatchet and 
be reconciled to the Prince who had slain his father, 
Joan caused Charles VH. to be consecrated and 
crowned at Reims (July 17, 1429). 

With all the ancient ceremonial, and with the 



Joan Fights, Conquers — and Falls 295 

holy oil preserved at the Abbey of Salnt-Remy, the 
solemn rites were accomplished. At their conclusion 
Joan thew herself at the knees of the Prince whom 
she had made King, and wept while she solemnly 
announced to him that she had accomplished God's 
will, and that now the Kingdom of France was his 
indeed. 

All present relieved their wrought-up feelings by 
following Joan's example and bursting into tears upon 
this joyous occasion, the result of the miracles of a 
simple peasant-maiden. 

After the ceremony, this maiden, who had become 
the leading figure in France, told the Archbishop of 
Reims that, having done that which our Lord had 
commanded her, she would prefer to return to her 
home and keep the sheep with her brothers and 
sisters. She does not, however, appear to have made 
any serious effort to depart, and the subsequent march 
in which she took part with the King across the north 
of France was a triumphal procession, without any 
opposition. As the march was continued into Picardy, 
halts were made at all the great towns, which opened 
their gates, while solemn services of thanksgiving 
were celebrated at Soissons and Laon. 

In Paris at this time the Duke of Bedford was 
in a situation of considerable distress for want of 
funds. So short of money was he that he was unable 
to pay the Magistrates composing the Parliament of 
Paris, unable also to buy the parchments which would 
be necessary for the inscription of the registers should 
Henry VI. make a Royal entry into the city. 

He sent for the Due de Bourgogne, but although 
Philippe came to him he brought to his brother-in-law 



29^ The France of Joan of Arc 

but little assistance In the way of men. After having 
openly repeated the story of his wrongs before the 
Regent and the assembled notables, Philippe again de- 
parted, leaving a few Picard men-at-arms behind him, 
in return for whom Bedford was compelled to mort- 
gage the city of Meaux to the Due de Bourgogne. 

There now seemed no hope for Bedford but in his 
rich uncle, the Cardinal- Bishop of Winchester, whom 
he was constantly pressing to come at once to Paris, 
and to bring the infant Henry VI. with him. 

The greedy Henry Beaufort would not come, how- 
ever, without conditions by which he could still more 
line his pockets, and he was speculating on the delay 
while engaging ships for the passage. 

At the beginning of July he signed a treaty 
settling the conditions upon which he consented to 
aid his great-nephew the King, but until after the 
crowning of Charles VH. the Cardinal still remained 
in England while fighting with his nephew Gloucester. 

Over this nephew, the Protector, the Cardinal had 
by this time obtained the whip-hand, even to the 
extent of succeeding in cutting down his salary. This 
the Cardinal had been able to accomplish by filling 
the Council with ecclesiastics. The Archbishop of 
Canterbury and half a dozen Bishops, all creatures 
of the rich and powerful Cardinal, therefore at this 
time formed the real Royalty of England. To such 
an extent had this become evident that, although 
there were strict laws in England against Freemasonry, 
the Archbishop of Canterbury in this year, 1429, 
founded a Lodge of Freemasons, of which he con- 
stituted himself the head. 

The Cardinal was not content with humbling his 



Joan Fights, Conquers — and Fails 297 

nephew the Protector in England, but was desirous of 
also reducing the Regent of France to a position sub- 
servient to himself. 

. To this condition was Bedford actually reduced 
when compelled to beg his uncle Henry Beaufort, 
time after time, to bring an army to his assistance, in 
order that he might crown Henry VI. in France. 

The Cardinal had sent the seven-year-old Henry 
over to Calais early in the year, but although he had 
made ready an army, one collected in England on 
the pretence of undertaking an expedition for the 
Pope against the Hussites in Bohemia, it was months 
before he made up his mind to employ it in France. 

At length, however, the Cardinal came to Paris, 
with his army and the young Henry VI., the entry 
being attended by great magnificence. Bedford went 
off with this army at once to protect Normandy, 
and was engaged in several slight encounters with 
the forces of Charles VII. before the latter gave him 
the slip and marched off to lay siege to Paris. 

This move was directly in opposition to the wishes 
of Joan, who declared that her voices had warned her 
to go no farther than Saint-Denis, the town which 
was the burial-place of the French Kings. Joan was, 
however, overruled, although, as the English held the 
Seine in force, both above and below Paris, and the 
people in the neighbourhood still in the main were 
favourable to their cause, the chance of success was 
but slight for Charles. 

To take a huge city like Paris it would be neces- 
sary to starve it out, which was under the circumstances 
impossible. No sudden assault was likely to succeed, 
as the greater number of the inhabitants of Paris, who 



298 The France of Joan of Arc 

had long since become compromised with the dominant 
English, were also Burgundian and anti-Armagnac. 
There was nothing that the Parisians dreaded, there- 
fore, more than the possible sack of the city by the 
Armagnac faction, of which the newly crowned King 
was the head. 

Nevertheless, in a furious assault headed by the 
Pucelle the outer ditch of one of the works was 
captured. There were two ditches, and Joan crossed 
over from the first to the second, but, whereas the 
first ditch had been dry, Joan was brought up short 
on finding the second one full of water. 

Under a pitiless rain of arrows, the brave girl held 
her ground, while crying to those around her to bring 
fascines to fill up the ditch. She calmly took the depth 
of the water with a spear, and declared that to do this 
was quite possible. 

There were, however, but few of her followers 
around her when an archer shot her, where she was 
unprotected by her armour, on the inside of her 
thigh. Joan was by this time too old a warrior to 
retreat for a mere arrow-wound, as she had done 
when before Orleans. Holding her ground, she 
remained to encourage the assailants, until the loss 
of blood compelled her to retire and take shelter 
in the outer ditch ; nor could she be persuaded 
to move from thence until about eleven o'clock at 
night. 

Meanwhile the attack proved a complete failure, 
at least fifteen hundred men being left dead and dying 
before the walls upon that unfortunate day, September 8, 
from which the downfall of Joan may be said to have 
commenced. 




HENRY Vr. OF ENGLAND. 



299 



i 



Joan Fights, Conquers — and Fails 301 

The people of Paris of all classes were the more 
infuriated against the witch for her having delivered 
her attack on the holy day of the Nativity of Notre- 
Dame. To see what they thought about her, we have 
to study the '' Journal of the Bourgeois de Paris," in 
the following paragraph : 

** They were full of such great evil and such 
unbelief that upon the word of a creature in the form 
of a woman that they had with them, that they called 
the Maid (though what she was God wot !) they made 
a charm to assault Paris on the day of the Nativity of 
Notre-Dame/' 

Poor Joan ! although she had endeavoured to pre- 
vent the attack, she had to bear the blame of friend 
as well as foe. 

When she failed to succeed, those who had pre- 
viously looked upon her with no very friendly eye, 
such as the Archbishop of Reims and others, declared 
that, after all, it was more probably the spirit of the 
Evil One than that of God that she had within her. 
In spite of Joan, who, having put her hand to the 
plough, was unwilling to turn back, this Archbishop, 
Regnault de Chartres, who was the King's Chancellor, 
treated with the defenders of Paris, among whom 
was the Due de Bourgogne, and made a truce with 
them. 

During the ensuing winter, although but poorly 
supported, the maid of Dom-Remy performed some 
daring feats while besieging various towns. Her 
squire, Daulon, deposed at her trial that at the siege 
of one of these places the retreat had been sounded 
when he found her almost alone before the walls. 
To his question why she remained thus alone, she 
18 



302 The France of Joan of Arc 

replied : " Not so, that she had fifty thousand of her 
people with her, and that they would not leave her 
until she had taken the said town. He said that, 
whatever she may have said, there were at the time 
not more than four or five with her." 

With the few that she had, Joan delivered an 
assault upon this place, Saint-Pierre-le Moustier, and 
she took it ! We can only imagine that, after Joan 
had gained the crest of the walls, some of those who 
had retreated must have returned to the support of 
the wonderful girl. 

At another place, called La Charite, which was 
held by the English, Joan failed to find any support, 
as all of the French with her took panic, ran away, 
and abandoned the siege altogether. 

Observing that the English were gradually weaken- 
ing, the astute Due Philippe now determined to help 
them in earnest, with the intention of keeping for 
Burgundy, not for England, any places that he might 
capture in Picardy. He was extremely wealthy, and 
made as much use of his gold as of his men-at-arms. 
Thus, by bribing the Governor of Soissons, he soon 
obtained possession of that important city. He then 
laid siege to Compiegne, of which place, although the 
Governor was also willing to be bribed, the people, 
who were Armagnac to the core, were not. Joan 
contrived to throw herself into Compiegne with a 
small reinforcement. No sooner was she within the 
walls than she was out again, heading a violent sortie 
which surprised the besiegers. Broken at first in the 
surprise, the Burgundians rallied and pushed the 
garrison back towards the bridge over the river. 
The bridge was obstructed, possibly owing to those 



Joan Fights, Conquers — and Fails 303 

who had crossed first having closed the barrier on the 
other side, or possibly simply because the exit was too 
small ; anyway, Joan gallantly remained behind to 
cover the retreat of the others. 

Being mounted, it was easy enough, from her 
white armour, to recognise Joan. The Burgundians 
surrounded her, and, although she cut and slashed 
away like any other trooper, she was dragged from 
the saddle, thrown to the ground, and held there 
until, her struggles being exhausted, she had to 
yield to the superior strength of the man who held 
her down. This man was either the Bastard of 
Vendome or an archer of Picardy ; whoever he was, 
he sold his prisoner to a great noble, Jean de Ligny, 
of the House of Luxembourg. The date of Joan's 
capture was May 23, 1430. 

What a glorious victory ! An army of Burgundians, 
with whom were also some English, had, after being 
first compelled to fly before her onslaught, captured 
the witch, the sorceress whose name alone for the last 
year had inspired them with terror. Few, if any, of 
those with that army had ever seen her face. They 
crowded around her, and, after removing her helmet, 
her cuirass, gazed on her at their leisure. What did 
they behold ? Merely a girl between eighteen and 
nineteen years of age, blooming in the early flower 
of womanhood. Was this, then, the sinister author 
of such terrible incantations ? She did not look so 
bad ; surely there must have been some mistake some- 
where ? Well, as even Saint Anthony was sorely 
tempted by female devils who looked no worse than 
this one, it might be as well to lock her up, and 
securely. Accordingly, after all had gazed their fill 



304 The France of Joan of Arc 

upon the girl, who merely looked like any other girl 
when deprived of her armour and weapons, locked up 
she was. 

But what were Joan's thoughts whileibeing gazed 
on and talked over ? And what, moreover, did she 
now think of her Archangel and her saints ? 



CHAPTER XXIII 

How Joan was Sold 

1430 

There can be but little doubt of the fact that, during 
her year of almost continuous warfare, the character of 
Joan changed to a certain extent. As she became 
more of a Captain, the edge of her womanly nature 
became blunted, and certainly that of her saintliness. 
A nurse employed on the battle-field becomes accus- 
tomed to sights of blood, and hardened. We who write 
these lines remember one such, a day or two after the 
Battle of Tel-el-Kebir, after roughly throwing a 
hospital orderly on one side and abusing him for a 
timorous fool, boldly plunging her hand into a gaping 
wound which the trembling orderly had not the nerve 
to touch. The girl did not look older than was Joan 
of Arc at the time of her captivity, but for her the 
sight of blood had ceased to have any terrors 
whatever. 

Thus was it with Joan. When she first assumed 
the sword of Sainte Catherine, she declared that 
nothing would induce her to use it. That sword, 
as will be remembered, became broken ; its virginal 
steel, employed in a virginal hand, could not stand the 
shock of being employed in the ignoble use of striking 

305 



3o6 The France of Joan of Arc 

a prostitute, at whose presence in the camp its pure- 
minded wearer had become enraged. Later, Joan 
spoke with complacency of the sword which she had 
wielded at Compiegne. 

Excellent, she declared, had she found its blade, 
both for striking and thrusting. When a woman has 
reached the stage of being able to speak as a con- 
noisseur of the weapon with which she delivers death- 
dealing blows to her fellow-mortals, the bloom has 
been rubbed off the peach — she is less womanly, 
above all, less saintly. 

One of the subjects of reproach brought by her 
enemies against Joan was that of delivering over to 
be hanged a Burgundian Captain, whom she had 
herself taken prisoner. He was, it is true, a brigand 
after the type of the Armagnac La Hire, one whose 
name, which was Franquet d'Arras, was detested in 
the districts which he terrorised, and yet public 
opinion was hardly in favour of Joan in the matter. 
She had at first kept this man with the intention 
of exchanging him against some prisoner of equal 
rank in the hands of the enemy, and had therefore 
in all probability promised him his freedom. Never- 
theless, when the King's Bailli demanded him at her 
hands she gave over this prisoner taken in honourable 
war, to be hanged as though he were a common 
criminal, taken red-handed after the committal of his 
crime. However much this Franquet may have 
deserved his doom, Joan was living in the company 
of many who equally merited the rope, and it seems 
to detract from the holiness of her character that it 
should have been a notorious enemy whom she thus 
handed over to an ignoble death. 



How Joan was Sold 307 

But how, It will be asked, was it possible for one 
exalted from her low estate to be the peer, the com- 
mander of Princes and Seigneurs, to retain her original 
simplicity of mind ? Having been endowed with 
riches, ennobled, enjoying the favour of the King, 
she became herself on the level of those Seigneurs 
among whom she lived ; their thoughts became her 
thoughts, their ways, to a certain extent, her ways — 
it was impossible for Joan, the leader of armies, to 
remain Joan the simple village-girl. The very fact 
that she was constantly compelled to pit her wits 
against those around her, anxious to take every 
advantage of her simplicity, should it become apparent, 
made it the more incumbent upon her to cast it off 
the better to meet the jealous nobles her fellows upon 
equal terms. And thus, more than ever, Joan the 
woman and Joan the saint was compelled, by the force 
of circumstances, to become Joan the courtier. 

Having become Joan the noble and the courtier, 
she is found, like any other Seigneur of her day, 
pushing her own especial interests, asking for and 
obtaining favours for those near and dear to her. 
While one of her brothers was raised from his position 
as a peasant to fill the responsible post of Provost of 
Vaucouleurs, for Dom-Remy, the village of her birth, 
Joan obtained the privilege of the remission of 
taxation. 

Thus, having become great, we find the saint 
becoming Seigneur. Not that we blame her for it — 
she surely had as much, if not more than any one in 
France, the right to those rewards which from the 
very earliest times have been the meed of the success- 
ful warrior. Is it not, even in our own day, the 



3o8 The France of Joan of Arc 

custom to shower upon the lucky General, Barony 
and Viscounty, even Dukedom ? likewise generous 
gifts amounting to /" 100,000 at a time ? Consult the 
Peerage ! the titles, if not the money grants, will be 
found there recorded. 

Again, do not the brothers of the successful 
General become Generals in turn, when others, equally 
if not more deserving, are left, like the little boat in 
the race — a long way astern ! Consult the Army List 
for the reply ! 

There is therefore no reproach against Joan if she 
did the same as the rest; we only assert that, by 
becoming one of the class which sought temporal 
advantages, favours other than those from Heaven, 
her pristine purity of mind could not remain at its 
original standard. 

Another temptation to which Joan was exposed, 
and which was for her itself a danger, was that, in her 
saintliness, the people treated her as a saint or a 
prophet. She was asked to foretell the future, people 
touched her on her horse and trappings that they 
might draw virtue from her. To her, as to Christ of 
old, women brought children that she might lay her 
hands upon them. How difficult must it have been 
for this young woman not to believe that she was 
indeed all that the simple-minded folk imagined her 
to be and told her that she was ! How hard, indeed, 
for her not to have too exalted an idea of herself ! 

Here, however, Joan seems not to have failed ; 
her most excellent sense sustained her, prevented her 
from the folly of imagining herself to be possessed of 
divine powers, save perchance with reference to the 
raising of the siege of Orleans and the crowning of 



How Joan was Sold 309 

the King. The deposition of Marguerite la Touroulde, 
with whom she stayed in that city, shows that at 
Bourges, when the women brought her crosses and 
rosaries in order that she might touch them, Joan said 
laughingly, '* Touch them yourself, my good Mar- 
guerite ; it will do them just as much good." 

Thus her common sense came to her aid and 
enabled her to resist those dictates of vanity from 
which scarcely another in her singular position could 
have escaped. It was this very common sense which, 
by enabling Joan to give wise replies to the sophistries 
of her judges, made them so hate her. They could 
not treat her as a crazy being, one not worthy of 
being listened to, when she closed their mouths upon 
their absurd questions with some reply which made 
evident their absurdity, and showed to all present that 
they were the fools, not she. 

It was evident, from the time of her capture, that 
Joan would have but little chance of escaping alive 
from the hands of her enemies. Even at the time of 
the consecration of Charles at Reims she knew her 
constant danger. Her parents, who had come from 
Dom-Remy to be present at the ceremony, then asked 
her if she did not fear. ** I only fear treason," was 
her reply ; and she had good reason for her fear. 

It does not seem in the least unlikely that it was 
as the result of this very treason that, the bridge 
becoming blocked at Compiegne, Joan was left behind 
and captured. After taking the Holy Communion in 
the church at Compiegne before the fatal sortie, she 
declared to those around her : *' There is a man who 
has sold me. I shall be betrayed and given over to 
death/' 



3IO The France of Joan of Arc 

Why, indeed, should not the Due de Bourgogne, 
who had been ^ble to buy the Governor of the city of 
Soissons, have been able to buy, not one, but a 
hundred men in Compiegne ? It would have been an 
easy matter for the Due to win over some of those in 
responsible positions, able with their bribes to procure 
others to help to close the gates behind Joan, when, 
as they knew she would do, she sallied forth to battle. 
That others should suffer and be caught outside as 
well as Joan would matter little to these. If not the 
Due de Bourgogne, why should not the gold of the 
English, of the rich Cardinal of Winchester, have been 
thus employed ? Surely to the English the downfall 
of Joan had at this time become an absolute necessity. 
To our mind, there was something very suspicious in 
connection with that block at the bridge, but nothing 
that could not be easily accounted for by Burgundian 
or English gold. 

In what manner was Joan treated after being 
captured by the enemies who had feared her as a 
witch and hated her for her success? It is bad 
enough for a man to be taken by the foe ; but for a 
woman — one who, forgetting her sex, has taken arms in 
hand to kill men, how much worse ! Would not the 
revengeful captors be apt to heap every indignity 
upon her, to show that she was but a woman after all, 
to humiliate the virgin whose great boast, publicly 
proclaimed, was her maidenhood ? We know what the 
times were ; was not Joan's risk of outrage far greater, 
therefore, even than of death ? It was a period when, 
although there still remained that pretence of chivalry 
which included the protection of the honour of women 
and damoisellesy that honour was, as a fact, treated 



How Joan was Sold 3 1 1 

as a mere negligible quantity. We well know the 
manners, the sensuality of the great ones of the earth 
during the fifteenth century on the Continent. That 
the most powerful Princes led lives of the greatest im- 
morality is evident, if only from the fact that Philippe 
de Bourgogne had so many natural children, while the 
dignitaries of the Church were no better. A priestly 
relation of the ruler of Burgundy, Jean de Bourgogne, 
the Prince-Bishop of Cambray, seems to have openly 
gloried in his vice, since he was served at the altar of 
his cathedral by thirty-six illegitimate sons. One of 
the border rulers of the day outdid either of these 
neighbouring Princes — this was the Comte de Cleves, 
who boasted of the paternity of sixty-three children 
born out of wedlock. Never, indeed, was there a 
period when in France and the neighbouring States 
men gave a more unbridled rein to the gratification of 
their evil passions. 

Things being thus, what were the chances for Joan, 
after having fallen into the hands of a band of savages, 
of being able to preserve her honour? Is it any 
wonder that the trembling girl clung with despera- 
tion, even although to do so were to cause her death, 
to the man's clothing which was her greatest pro- 
tection ? 

The ecclesiastics who tried her later pretended to 
see but an additional proof of Joan's sorcery in her 
insistence in thus clinging to male attire ; but they 
knew better. Then, in order to remove her defence 
and subject her to the last outrage, they took away 
her man's clothing, after which this last outrage was 
certainly attempted, if not accomplished, upon the 
poor, helpless girl, who was attached by a chain to a 



312 The France of Joan of Arc 

beam in her prison. It was to the interest of her 
inhuman Judges to prove that Joan was in league with 
the Devil, but it had previously been publicly stated by 
the Archbishop of Embrun that the Devil could make 
no compact with a pure maiden. To rob her of her 
purity, an English noble is said to have entered her 
chamber. Joan's Confessor left two statements on this 
subject, from revelations made to him by the unhappy 
girl herself. These statements vary on the main point 
of the actual outrage. In the first the Confessor 
records : '* On I'avoit tourment^e violentement en la 
prison, molest^e, battue, et d^choullee, et qu'un 
millourt [milord] d'Angleterre I'avoit forc6e." The 
second deposition of Frere Pasquerel, which is recorded 
in Latin, runs : '* Eam temptavit vi opprimere " — only 
the attempt being stated. In both depositions, how- 
ever, it becomes evident that the poor girl was cruelly 
beaten by the would-be ravisher. 

When subjected to these horrors and cruelties, is 
it any wonder that Joan resumed the male attire which 
was intentionally left temptingly near her ? 

Whatever may have been the actual facts of the 
incident above recorded, we are inclined to think that 
the priest Pasquerel was actuated by his animus 
against the English in representing an English noble, 
a " milord," as having been miscreant enough thus to 
play into the hands of the cruel French ecclesiastics, 
headed by a French Bishop, who sought thus to 
deprive a pure maid of her defence against Satan. 
We know that she was left alone in her prison with 
three of the ruffianly soldiers of the day, common men, 
and it is far more probable that these it was who were 
instigated to the commission of the crime. 



How Joan was Sold 313 

These events do not, however, bear upon the 
treatment of Joan when, after a violent struggle, she 
was captured by a member of the Burgundian force. 
How long did she remain in the hands of this man-at- 
arms before she was purchased from her captor by 
Jean de Ligny, and to what amount of insult was she 
subjected when, deprived of her armour, she was at 
the mercy of the brutal soldiery who were restrained 
by no laws of chivalry ? We can imagine the coarse 
laughter, the vulgar sarcasm, the enforced kisses of 
these bloody men in their moment of triumph. 

Once in the hands of the Due de Ligny, we have 
no cause to imagine that Joan was subjected to ill- 
treatment. It was to his interest to protect her, for 
she would prove a powerful factor in his hands in 
the pursuit of his ambitious views. He was a vassal 
of the Due de Bourgogne, and, just as his master was 
in his greed seizing upon Brabant, while sacrificing 
the rights of his wards, who were the rightful heirs, 
so also had the Due Jean de Ligny an ambition to 
realise. 

Although of very high birth, being connected with 
the Emperor Henry VH. and with the King of 
Bohemia, Jean was the younger son of a younger 
son. His father was Jean, Seigneur de Beaurevoir, 
who had himself been the son of Gui, Comte de 
Ligny. Being thus nothing but the cadet of a very 
noble house, Jean de Ligny, who had his way to 
make in the world, had succeeded in getting himself 
adopted as her heir by his rich great-aunt, the pro- 
prietress of the Counties of Ligny and Saint-Pol. 

As the aunt was on the point of death and his 
elder brother disputed his succession, it became im- 



314 The France of Joan of Arc 

peratlve upon Jean to obtain the active support of 
his Suzerain, the Due Philippe, at whose beck and 
call he humbly stood. 

Having obtained possession of Joan's person, he 
knew that, in order to retain his favour, he would 
do wisely to give her up only to his Suzerain, who 
could make what bargain he liked in turn with the 
English before yielding to them the captive girl 
whom they hated worse than the hell from which 
they said she came. 

In the meantime the English, who were deter- 
mined to have Joan at once, first endeavoured to 
bribe and then threatened Jean de Ligny. They 
wished to wreak their vengeance at once, and, by 
burning her as a witch, to prove that Charles VII. 
had consorted with the Evil One, that his so-called 
consecration had been merely the act of Satan. Jean, 
having locked Joan up in a tower called Beaulieu, 
in Picardy, found that he was in great danger 
from the English, who threatened to capture this 
tower, and to take the girl from him by force. 

To lose Joan at such a juncture would mean ruin 
instead of fortune for the young noble of Luxembourg. 
He determined to disappoint the English, and, as 
he owned a castle near Cambray, in the territory of 
the Empire, called Beaurevoir, he suddenly sent the 
young woman off to this place with a strong escort. 

The English might now rage as they pleased, 
the girl was safe from their clutches, and Jean would 
at his leisure make his own terms with his liege lord, 
the Due de Bourgogne, on whose behalf he retained 
her in security. 

The English had been beaten on several occasions 



How Joan was Sold 3^5 

in fair fight since Joan had taken up arms against 
them, and these defeats had in a measure been caused 
by the superstitious awe with which the soldiery re- 
garded the young peasant of Dom-Remy, and the 
sacred standard which waved in front of her in the 
moment of conflict. When Joan had been taken, 
the English Government of the Cardinal and his 
Bishops plainly saw that it would be necessary to 
utterly discredit her victories, to prove that she was 
a mere limb of Satan in order to show that God was 
not, as people said, on the side against them. If 
this could be done, then the people of France would 
say that they had been in error, would own that the 
Devil had, after all, been on the side of a pre- 
sumptuous and irreligious strumpet, and had enabled 
her to work wonders by horrid charms and wicked 
incantations. 

As after the arrival of Winchester in France the 
war still dragged on, and he found that money was 
getting short, he began to feel that he there presented 
but a ridiculous figure, unable to accomplish anything 
— not even the Coronation of Henry VI. He had, 
for a wonder, been spending a considerable quantity 
of his own ill-earned cash since crossing the Channel, 
and this, above all things, went to his heart, and 
determined him as soon as possible to crush the 
witch who by her sorceries had cost him so much 
money. 

If only he could obtain possession of her person, 
he would hand her over to the Church — the French 
Church. He had ready to his hand a French Bishop 
who would suit his purpose admirably, one prepared 
even to lick his boots if so ordered. This prelate 



31 6 The France of Joan of Arc 

was Pierre Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais, a man 
of considerable parts, who lived at the Cardinal's 
table. 

Cauchon was of the Burgundian faction ; he had 
indeed been formerly, as a Doctor of the University, 
one of the ardent supporters of the Cabochiens of 
Paris, from which place he had been hunted out upon 
the occasion of the Armagnac reaction. 

Under the Burgundian Duke he had been able 
to return to Paris, and then had been given the 
See of Beauvais, which town he had held for the 
Regent Bedford until, upon the fall of Orleans, 
the people of Beauvais had opened their gates to 
Charles VII. 

Cauchon then went to England, and, the better 
to pay his court to the Cardinal of Winchester, learned 
to speak the English language. The Cardinal, seeing 
how useful this clever ex-Doctor of the University 
might become to him, wrote and proposed Cauchon 
to the Pope for the Archbishopric of Rouen, which 
was about to be vacated. Unfortunately, the Pope 
did not hurry himself to confer the appointment, and, 
owing to the divisions between the University of 
Rouen and that of Paris, Rouen also did not support 
Cauchon's nomination. 

While waiting for something to turn up to his 
advantage, the Bishop of Beauvais remained at Rouen 
as the hanger-on of the Cardinal and his humble 
slave. 

Of Rouen, which had remained an English city, 
the Earl of Warwick, the Governor and Preceptor of 
Henry VI., was the ruling Captain. Under his 
thumb in that place he had the Vicar of the Inquisi- 



"^i^^ 







JOAN OF ARC. 
From a Painting by M. Raymond Bilze. 



317 



How Joan was Sold 319 

tion in France, and when Jean de Ligny and the 
Due de Bourgogne showed but little inclination to 
hand over the person of the captive Joan, Warwick 
caused the Vicar, who was but a humble monk, 
to write and demand her surrender in the name of 
the Inquisition. 

The Duke of Bedford caused the University of 
Paris to write to the same effect, although, as that 
body was in violent discussion with the Pope on the 
question of episcopal benefices, it was not inclined 
to favour the Papal Inquisition where Joan was 
concerned. 

A commission of Bishops was also the idea of the 
Cardinal of Winchester ; but he had to catch Joan 
first before he could try her for sorcery, and Ligny 
and Bourgogne hung on to her tight. While waiting 
for these to deliver her over, in order that there should 
be no divided authority, Cauchon was caused to write 
to the King (Henry VI.) and represent that the spot 
where Joan had been taken was on the boundaries of 
his diocese, and that therefore he claimed to be her 
Judge. To this the King replied, in a Royal letter 
to the University of Rouen, that the Bishop of 
Beauvais and the Vicar of the Inquisition should 
combine forces and try the sacrilegious girl together. 

This decision appeared to give general satisfaction, 
but, as it was impossible to commence a trial without 
a prisoner, Cauchon, the future Judge, went off in 
person with letters from Bedford and Winchester to 
the Dues de Bourgogne and de Ligny. 

While representing his right to jurisdiction as 
Bishop, which was false, as Joan had not been actually 
taken in his See, Cauchon fulfilled also another role 
19 



320 The France of Joan of Arc 

— that of purchaser. He bargained for Joan s person, 
offering an income of three hundred livres yearly to 
the Bastard of Vendome, and the sum of six thousand 
livres at first to Ligny and Bourgogne. These sums 
not being entertained, the Bishop of Beauvais raised 
his price to ten thousand livres, which was, he said, 
as much as, according to the customs of France, 
would be given for a King's ransom. As these offers 
did not appear sufficiently tempting, England put on 
the screw in another manner, and with success. 
When, on July 19, 1430, the English merchants were 
forbidden to traffic with Flanders, Philippe, as Comte 
de Flandre, was brought to his knees ! All opposition 
was withdrawn, and the sale of Joan was agreed to. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

Joan in her Chains 

1430— 1431 

During the months of negotiation, from the end of 
May, when Joan was taken prisoner, until October 26, 
when her ransom was paid to Jean de Ligny, what 
was the man doing for whose sake Joan had left her 
peaceful life at Dom-Remy on the Meuse ? Surely 
Charles VII., who had plenty of prisoners in his hands 
whom he could offer in exchange for the girl who had 
given him his Crown, was making arrangements to 
carry out some such exchange ? Or perhaps he, too, 
was treating for a ransom, realising the value to his 
arms of the leader whom he had lost, offering a sum 
which was even greater than a King's ransom for the 
brave maiden who had consecrated him a Monarch. 

Nothing of the kind! Charles VII., miserable 
wretch that he was, never showed by any sign that 
he gave Joan so much as a thought. He had 
recently, through his Chancellor, the Archbishop of 
Reims, been making some negotiations having refer- 
ence to a truce or peace, but in them there was not a 
single word concerning the young girl. Not the faintest 
effort was made for Joan, who had reassured the 
doubting by declaring his legitimacy, brought him 

321 



322 The France of Joan of Arc 

from dishonour to honour, saved him, given him 
everything, placed him on the throne when he was 
little better than an outcast, or a dog without a 
kennel. 

Seeing in Charles such a miserable ingrate, does 
it not appear as if Joan were mistaken from the first ? 
Surely, the Archangel Michael, Sainte Catherine and 
Sainte Marguerite, Saint Louis and Saint Charlemagne, 
must all have forgotten whom they were talking about, 
when they urged her to risk her life and honour for 
the elevation of such a despicable wretch as this 
Charles ! Possibly, coming to earthly regions from 
the realms of Eternity, where to-morrow Is as yester- 
day, these well-meaning saints had miscalculated the 
date altogether, and were thinking of another Charles 
the Dauphin— the poor little boy, Charles Louis, who 
died of starvation and Ill-treatment In the Temple in 
Paris nearly four hundred years later. If so, alas ! 
owing to their error, no celestial aid came opportunely 
to set that tortured child upon his throne, or to save 
his young life, which was slowly kicked and beaten 
out of his little emaciated body ! 

Had It been but for a man that was a man, some 
one noble, a being with an idea of right and wrong or 
of humanity, that Joan was to be called upon to suffer, 
there might have been some sense in her apparitions 
— her voices. 

But for a Charles VII. ! Maybe that those who 
declared that the visions were those of maleficent 
spirits were not so far wrong, after all, since the result 
of their appearance was, after many months spent in 
solitude and base neglect, merely to cause the most 
awful and agonising death to one of the purest 



Joan in her Chains 323 

women who ever brightened this earth by her 
presence. 

Well, Charles VII., Charles the murderer, who 
later, for his own selfish reasons, humbled himself to 
the Due de Bourgogne, whose father he had killed, 
did nothing for Joan ; but what did his wife Marie, 
or his mother-in-law, Queen Yolande of Sicily, for the 
girl whom at first they had protected ? They did 
nothing also. Yolande was otherwise employed ; she 
had something else to think about just then. Her 
schemes for the joining of Anjou to Lorraine were 
just at that moment in jeopardy ; the Due de Lorraine 
was dying, and there was in the field a rival to her 
son Rene. No ; clearly she had neither time nor 
money to spare — it was perhaps a pity about the 
Pucelle ; but, well, there were other things much more 
important to be considered than a girl who was, after 
all, merely one of the King's serfs from a distant 
province. There was, therefore, no help for Joan in 
this direction either ; but one good-hearted woman 
there was who endeavoured to save her. This was 
the young wife of Jean de Ligny. 

This amiable grande dame threw herself on her 
knees to Jean, and begged him not to be guilty of 
an act so dishonouring as to give up Joan. The 
young Due de Ligny excused himself to his wife. 
He was very sorry, he could not help himself, part 
of the ransom had indeed for some time past been 
in his pocket ; and then there was his Suzerain, the 
Due de Bourgogne, whom he could not possibly 
offend. Accordingly Jean de Ligny gave Joan up, 
not directly to the English it is true, but to Philippe, 
surnamed *' le Bon." Had it not been for the trouble 



324 The France of Joan of Arc 

about the succession of the territories of Ligny and 
Saint- Pol it seems possible that, moved by his tender- 
hearted wife's entreaties, Jean would not have de- 
livered Joan over to the Due de Bourgogne. He 
gave the excuse of acting under compulsion, and, to 
exemplify this, chose a strange addition to his coat 
of arms. This consisted of a camel (an animal, by 
the way, he had probably never seen), with its back 
giving way under a load. Underneath he chose for 
his motto, " No one is bound to do the impossible 
(Nul n'est tenu k I'impossible)." 

While shut up at Beaurevoir the unhappy Joan, 
terrified at the idea of being handed over to the 
English, called upon her familiar spirits for assist- 
ance. The saints came to her call, but the reply that 
they gave was not very reassuring. They told her 
that she could not be delivered until she had seen the 
English King. 

More than her own fate she was troubled about 
the prospective fate of the poor people still besieged 
in the town of Compiegne. With the intention of 
flying to their assistance, and saving herself at the 
same time, she threw herself from the window of the 
tower in which she was confined. Although she is 
said to have been insensible when picked up, this 
cannot have been very high, as, although she refused 
her food for two days after her fall, she had no bones 
broken. Owing to the kind nursing of the ladies of 
the Ligny family, Joan was soon well enough to be 
sent to the Due de Bourgogne, who took her with 
him to Arras, and then to the tower of Crotoy, on 
the English Channel. In the course of her exa- 
mination on March 12 in the following year (1431) 



Joan in her Chains 325 

Joan admitted that, while gazing across the sea, she 
could distinguish the English coast, and thought 
sorrowfully of her vain dreams to invade that hostile 
land in order to rescue the Due d'OrMans. 

At Crotoy Joan passed her time in hearing Mass 
and in prayer, chiefly for the relief of Compiegne. 
We are now asked to believe that the saints, who 
so vainly told her that she would be delivered upon 
seeing the young English King, gave her some more 
trustworthy information, namely, that Compiegne 
would be delivered upon November i, 1430. This 
Joan announced beforehand, and on the day that she 
had foretold the city was indeed rescued from the 
besieging Burgundians. Philippe was not present in 
person when his troops were driven away from Com- 
piegne, but he suffered a severe defeat himself three 
weeks later at a place called Germiny, after which 
he was obliged to hold himself strictly on the 
defensive. 

He had not, perhaps, quite made up his mind to 
give Joan up before these reverses, but they decided 
Philippe to draw tighter his alliance with the English, 
with whom, above all, he wished to renew his profit- 
able Flemish trade. Should this, owing to his action, 
remain interrupted, there seemed every probability 
of the fact that, in addition to his war in France, 
the Due de Bourgogne would find himself called 
upon to face a revolt of his discontented Flemish 
subjects. 

Accordingly, chiefly in order to quiet the traders, 
the cloth-makers, and linen-weavers of the Low 
Countries, the chivalrous Due de Bourgogne, who 
had but recently founded the noble Order of the 



326 The France of Joan of Arc 

Golden Fleece, gave over the helpless maiden, his 
captive, into the hands of those^who were loudly- 
crying for her blood — a knightly action, indeed ! 

Joan was taken to Rouen by the English in the 
winter months of 1430, and, as at that time matters 
were going badly for Bedford in various directions, 
the University of Paris, where the eight-year-old 
Henry VI. now was, wrote to Bishop Cauchon to 
hurry up and commence his trial of the sorceress. 

This the Bishop of Beauvais was not, however, 
inclined to do until he was sure of his pay as ecclesi- 
astical Judge while conducting the proceedings. He 
therefore procrastinated until the 9th day of January 
of 1 43 1 before opening the proceedings, which he 
commenced with the Vicar of the Inquisition seated 
on the bench beside him. 

Then a month was taken up in a preliminary 
investigation, during which the Bishop submitted to 
a Court composed of eight Doctors of Law and Arts 
of Rouen the various statements which he had col- 
lected concerning Joan's character and antecedents. 
The result of this investigation was that the Doctors 
decided that it would not be sufficient to try Joan 
on a charge of magic alone ; it would not, they said, 
be grave enough, but must be amended to one of 
heresy and schism, for which the punishment would 
be as exemplary as the terrible crime deserved. 

During the month previous to the opening of 
these proceedings the child- King Henry VI. had 
been crowned at Notre-Dame in Paris. The expenses 
of the Coronation were defrayed by his great-uncle, 
the Cardinal. Therefore, although the Bishop of 
Paris considered that it should be his privilege to 



Joan in her Chains 3^7 

conduct the solemn ceremony of consecration of the 
King of France in his own cathedral, the Cardinal 
performed it himself. Many French Princes of the 
Blood, including the Due de Bourgogne and his son, 
were represented at this ceremony by Seigneurs 
wearing tabards, on which were blazoned their coats 
of arms ; but, with exception of Cauchon and a string 
of French Bishops who followed the Cardinal, no 
really great French personages were actually present. 
The presence of that English Prince, the Duke of 
Bedford, and many English nobles lent brilliancy, 
however, to the ceremony of placing the French 
Crown on the head of an English boy. The subse- 
quent festivities were marked by the extreme mean- 
ness and want of courtesy of the English towards the 
French officials. 

When the canons of Notre-Dame insisted that the 
vase containing the wine used at the consecration 
belonged by right to them, it was retained by the 
young King's officers ; and at the subsequent Royal 
banquet the city officials and members of the Parlia- 
ment, in their crimson gowns, were allowed to fight 
for seats with the street-porters and charcoal-burners. 
While many of them were hustled, knocked down, and 
even robbed by the ruffianly crowd, but few of these 
dignitaries contrived even to obtain a seat at the feast. 
When, again, during the joustings in honour of the 
Coronation, the Heralds, according to ancient custom, 
cried '' Largesse ! " scarcely any money was thrown to 
the expectant multitude. The Bourgeois of Paris 
relates that the people who went away empty-handed 
were furious, exclaiming : '* We should have had more 
at the wedding of a common jeweller." 



32 8 The France of Joan of Arc 

As no prisoners were set at liberty after the Corona- 
tion of Henry VI., and no remission of taxes made, its 
result was merely to cause general discontent, whereas, 
properly and generously handled, the ceremony might 
easily have resulted in increased popularity for the 
English rule in France. 

As it was determined to take the young King to 
be crowned also in London, the English Court on its 
way to the sea-coast proceeded to Rouen. Now, had 
Joan's voices but spoken to her truthfully at Beaure- 
voir, would have been the opportunity for her to see 
the King of England and obtain the promised liberty, 
if only as an act of grace after the Coronation. Al- 
though Henry VI. was lodged in the chateau close to 
the place where Joan was confined, his presence in 
Rouen brought, however, no improvement to her 
condition, and it would not appear as if the young 
Prince was even allowed to see the sorceress who had 
wrought him so much evil in his French domains. 

The Duchess of Bedford, who was Anne, sister of 
Philippe of Burgundy, and the English ladies, whose 
prudish customs she emulated, were sadly scandalised 
with the behaviour of the poor imprisoned girl who, 
while chained to a log in her prison, still insisted upon 
wearing trousers like a man. 

As Queen Yolande and her ladies in April 1429, 
so did now the Duchess Anne and her ladies, visit 
Joan to hold an investigation upon the delicate subject 
as to whether she were a pure maiden or no. The 
examining matrons, being able to say nothing else 
against her character, then resolved that her dress at 
any rate was immodest and indecent, and must be 
changed. Already the ladies of Ligny at Beaurevoir 



Joan in her Chains 329 

had begged her to assume an attire more becoming to 
an honest girl, but she does not seem to have done so 
before her attempt to escape by throwing herself from 
the tower and subsequent removal, to be handed over 
to the Due de Bourgogne. 

The Duchess of Bedford, however determined she 
may have been to force Joan to dress like a woman, 
would not appear to have succeeded at this period, 
although, as we know, the young girl was compelled 
to accept woman's raiment later. 

It was the habit of the great French and English 
ladies of that day to cause themselves to be dressed 
by a man tailor, and this was the cause of the ill- 
success of the Duchess. 

Students of the reign of Louis XIV., le Grand 
Monarque, will remember a similar Incident to that 
which occurred In the case of Joan, when Louis first 
caused his Spanish wife Marie Th^rese to be fitted 
for her corsets by a man corsetier. Although the 
modest Spanish Princess strongly objected to being 
compelled to disrobe and be measured by this In- 
dividual, the King forced her to submit. He told her 
severely that it was a matter of court '' privilege," 
which could not be Interfered with, belonging to the 
Queen's tailor and the valets of her wardrobe to both 
fit her and lace her, and that, as their appointments 
were charges which they had bought and paid for, he 
refused to change the custom of France. As with 
many another disagreeable *' custom of France" which 
her unfaithful husband declined to change, the un- 
fortunate Marie Therese was compelled to put up for 
the rest of her life with that which greatly tended to 
shock her womanly feelings. 



330 The France of Joan of Arc 

To Joan, in like manner, the Duchess of Bedford 
sent a woman's dress by the hands of a man-tailor, 
who was ordered to remain and robe her with it. 

The modesty of the unfortunate maiden must 
already have been shocked daily, living as she was 
with three English soldiers in her room day and night, 
but the process of disrobing and being dressed by the 
Duchess of Bedford's tailor was more than she could 
endure. The man, in a bold and familiar manner 
trying to clothe her, she pushed him away from her. 
When he then proceeded to lay his hands upon her, 
Joan administered to him a box on the ear which sent 
him reeling against the wall. 

It was only after the boy-King Henry VI. had 
departed from Rouen on his way to England that 
Cauchon commenced his first investigation ; and the 
Cardinal of Winchester, having seen his great-nephew 
safely across the Channel, at once returned to Rouen 
to closely watch the proceedings against the poor 
young girl now left apparently without a friend in the 
world. 

Winchester soon learned from his tool, Cauchon, 
that he could not answer for the monk who was the 
Vicar of the Inquisition at Rouen. This Dominican 
appeared recalcitrant ; he did not seem at all anxious 
to join in the trial, making frivolous excuses about 
his scruples of conscience and as to whether he had 
vested in him sufficient powers. He even went so 
far as to demand that some one else should sit in 
his place until his powers could be ratified by the 
Pope. 

These objections did not suit the Cardinal at all. 
It was important, above all things, that the Pope's 



Joan in her Chains 331 

representative should share In the proceedings, in 
order to justify their result In the eyes of the Catholic 
world. Persuasion failing, Henry Beaufort tried the 
effect of money. When he allotted to the needy monk 
the large payment of twenty golden sols monthly, his 
scruples of conscience vanished and Joan had another 
powerful enemy joined to those already against 
her. 

When Joan, with Irons on her ankles, was first 
brought before the Court on February 21, 1431, the 
assembled Commission found that they were not going 
to have It all their own way with her. She flatly 
refused to tell the truth about everything concerning 
her visions — rather, she said, would she lose her head. 
After some difficulty, however, the wily Doctors con- 
trived to extract an oath from Joan to the effect 
that she would answer in matters concerning the 
question of faith. 

The Court before which Joan had now been 
dragged was not one for her actual trial, but merely 
for her previous Interrogatory. It lasted until the 
beginning of Holy Week In 1 431, whereas her trial 
began after Easter, at the end of March in that 
year. 

As Cauchon presided both over the previous Com- 
mission of Inquiry and the trial, the questions and 
answers given may, however, all be considered as 
forming part of one and the same thing, anything 
considered damning to Joan In the inquiry being 
noted to be brought up against her at the subsequent 
trial. 

Upon her daily appearance before this Com- 
mission, the unfortunate girl was bombarded with 



33^^ The France of Joan of Arc 

questions, beginning with, '* How old are you, 
and what are your name and surname ? " To this 
she replied that she was about nineteen, was called 
Jehanette in her home, but Jehanne in France. 
As for being called ** La Pucelle (the maiden)," 
she was shy, and avoided a direct reply. She 
was now called upon by the superstitious priests to 
repeat the Pater Noster and Ave Maria — no doubt 
they hoped that, as a witch, she would prove unable 
to do so. Here Joan baffled her tormentors by 
saying that if the Bishop de Beauvais would first 
hear her in confession she would be delighted to 
repeat these prayers. But the Bishop refused to hear 
her confess. 

On another occasion Joan had admitted that she 
had again heard her voices in answer to her prayers, 
and that they had ordered her to reply boldly, but 
she irritated the Court by saying that she would 
not tell certain things that the saints had communi- 
cated to her for the King's ear alone. Still more 
did she anger the Court by telling Cauchon that 
she had really been sent by God, and that he, who 
called himself her Judge, had better, therefore, be 
careful what he was about, or he would put himself 
in great danger. 

When her Judges thought to trip her up by asking, 
*'Joan, do you think that you are in a condition of 
grace ? " her reply could not have been better chosen : 
"If I am not, God will be willing to place me in it; 
if I am. He will deign to maintain me so." 

To this Cauchon could make no reply. 

Anxious to make her out an enchantress, she 
was asked many questions with reference to her 



Joan in her Chains 333 

youthful visits to the fairy-tree at Dom-Remy, and, 
to show her evil disposition, urged to confess if it 
was not true that she hated the Burgundians. 

One Monday, with a voice like honey, Cauchon 
demanded news of her health since he had seen her 
last. 

*' As you see, as well as one can be who is loaded 
down with chains," was Joan's answer. 

When it was sought to entangle this poor girl 
by the indelicate question as to whether Saint Michael 
was naked when he appeared to her, Joan baffled 
this hostile inquiry with the clever reply : 

** Do you not then think that God has the where- 
withal to clothe him ? " 

In their effort to convict her of consorting with 
evil spirits, Joan was asked a hundred questions about 
her saints, their arms, their legs, their bodies, whether 
they resembled angels, and so on. The tortured 
prisoner was not so simple but she could see very 
well that the members of the Court believed firmly 
enough in the possibility of the apparition of devils, 
but very little in that of angels. The only satisfaction 
that she gave, therefore, was to affirm that, as firmly 
as she believed in God, so did she believe that they 
were angels. 

They next worried her with a great many foolish 
inquiries concerning her sacred standard, and those 
made by her followers in imitation of hers. All 
these contained the hidden trap of the suggestion 
that Joan had told her followers that she had cast 
a charm or spell on their standards ; it was, however, 
a trap which she was cunning enough to be able to 
elude by saying : 



334 The France of Joan of Arc 

** I told them, * Enter boldly among the English,' 
and I plunged in myself." 

" Why was your standard, then, the only one used 
at the consecration at Reims ? " 

** It had been through the difficulties; that was 
surely sufficient reason that it should also be present 
at the honour," answered Joan. 




JOAN OF ARC AT THE STAKE. 



335 



CHAPTER XXV 
Joan Retracts 

May 143 1 

While attacked on every side with insidious questions, 
the sharp-witted Joan did not always in her replies 
maintain an attitude of respect for her Judges. When, 
for instance, they asked her if she had paid the soldier 
who, fighting under her, actually secured Franquet 
d' Arras as prisoner, she told the Court, sarcastically, 
that she was not the Treasurer of France to spend 
money. She told them, again, that the question as 
to whether or no she knew by revelation if she 
would escape, did not concern their law-suit against 
her. 

Upon this point of her possible escape she seems, 
however, when pressed, to have answered differently 
on different occasions. Once she said, '' Yes, they 
have told me that I shall be delivered, and that I 
may be gay and bold " ; but another time replied 
that her voices bade her to accept everything willingly ; 
not to worry about her martyrdom, as she would surely 
come to the Kingdom of Paradise. 

"Then," inquired Cauchon, ''you think that you 
can no longer commit mortal sin ? " 

'♦ I leave that in our Lord's hands." 
20 337 



33 S The France of Joan of Arc 

When the Court found it impossible to convict 
this chaste girl of sorcery out of her own mouth, 
its members, who varied in number daily, changed 
their tactics, and sought to entangle her from the 
side of her want of obedience to the Church. To 
believe in free inspiration, in a personal revelation, 
in submission to God not through the authority of 
the Church, was a deadly sin. She was accordingly 
harried on this point — if she could be proved to set 
herself up in opposition to the Church Militant, of 
the Pope, the Cardinals, and priests, she was lost. 

When it was distinctly put to her, "Will you not, 
then, submit yourself to the Church Militant ? " she 
said that she refused to reply otherwise than that 
she had been sent by the Church Victorious of On 
High — that of God, the Virgin Mary, and the saints ; 
that God was supreme over Popes and prelates, and 
that she did not believe in any one else. By a reply 
like this, Joan played directly into the hands of her 
enemies. She was not submissive to the Church 
Militant, therefore distinctly a heretic. 

Joan now found three friends among her accusers : 
in Jean de La Fontaine, a distinguished Law Doctor 
of Rouen, and a couple of monks. Their sense of 
justice being revolted at her treatment by the Court 
of which they were members, these three repaired to 
Joan in her prison, and advised her that she had a 
right to appeal directly to the Pope and the Council 
then assembled at Bale ; and through them she 
accordingly drew up an appeal. 

Cauchon found out from the soldiers guarding 
Joan just what had happened, when these three 
friends to Joan narrowly escaped with their lives, for 



Joan Retracts 339 

having acted in accord with the barest dictates of 
justice. To their honour be it related, in the legists 
of Rouen it was that Cauchon found his principal 
opponents. Another Law Doctor, named Jehan 
Lohier, snapped his fingers at the whole of the case, 
declaring that it was illegal and unjust to expose a 
simple girl, with no counsel to defend her, to the 
attacks of innumerable learned Doctors of Theology. 
He said, boldly, that as the honour of Charles VII. 
was as much at stake as that of the prisoner herself, 
the King should be called upon to come and give 
evidence ; moreover, that Joan should be provided 
with counsel. 

To escape the probable consequences of his bold- 
ness, Jehan Lohier, having thus expressed himself to 
the Bishop of Beauvais, left Rouen at once for Rome, 
where he rose high in the Papal service. 

Another defender of Joan was found in the ranks 
of the Church. The Bishop of Avranche, being con- 
sulted, declared that, according to the Church herself, 
and the testimony of the saints, notably that of Saint 
Thomas, visions could not be rejected. There was 
therefore nothing impossible in the assertions of 
Joan, said the Bishop of Avranche. Another prelate, 
the Bishop of Lisieux, took another line, saying that 
there was no proof that Joan's visions were the work 
of the Devil, as she might simply be telling lies, and 
have had no visions at all. 

From the members of the Chapter of the Cathedral 
of Rouen, who detested Cauchon, and had no wish to 
see him become their Archbishop, he likewise found 
opposition ; but these the unjust Judge contrived to 
overrule by letters and opinions from the University 



340 The France of Joan of Arc 

of Paris, and from another Bishop, who declared 
violently that Joan was possessed of the Devil, ** as 
proved by her want of virtue and humanity." 

That under all this browbeating, while listening 
daily to the disquisitions of the learned Doctors, it is 
not to be marvelled at if Joan herself became pjuzzled 
to know which was right, which wrong. In her con- 
fusion of mind, she occasionally expressed herself as 
willing to submit to the Papal authority and the 
Church Militant, but only as regarding the matter of 
faith ; but, when it came to the deeds that she had 
actually accomplished, it was found impossible to 
shake her. There, she maintained, she was answer- 
able to God alone. 

Being worried as she was, the poor girl became 
ill, an additional cause for her worry being that her 
heavenly adviser. Saint Michael, came to see her no 
more, but was replaced by another celestial monitor, 
in the shape of Saint Gabriel. It was Palm Sunday 
when Joan fell sick, and her sufferings were increased 
by being confined a prisoner on this joyous occasion, 
when all the world was abroad. 

Sick or well, a couple of days later the prisoner 
was hauled before a great assemblage in the hall of 
the Castle of Rouen, to listen to a pack of lies. She 
was then informed that all the assessors there present 
were benign and learned Doctors, men who wished 
her neither harm, nor corporal punishment, but only 
to lead her in the right path and to enlighten her. As 
she was not sufficiently instructed in the road of 
salvation, she was offered teachers by the Vicar of the 
Inquisition. 

Joan humbly expressed her thanks for the kind 



Joan Retracts 341 

intentions of her tormentors towards her, and also her 
readiness to be instructed in matters of faith ; but she 
added that, where her deeds were concerned, she 
would only submit herself to the Church of Heaven, 
and that she would revoke nothing that she had done 
by the command of our Lord. 

The Doctors now attacked her seriously upon the 
point of her sin in wearing man's clothing. To the 
request to give her reasons for wearing this, Joan 
replied evasively. If the Doctors insisted in pre- 
tending not to understand them, she, in her modesty, 
would not enlighten them. They threatened not to 
allow her to hear Mass or receive the Communion on 
Easter Day, to which threat Joan replied that, surely 
it would make no difference what dress she wore while 
receiving the Body of Christ. 

When the cruel assessors still informed this 
religious girl that she should not hear the Mass unless 
she changed her clothing, the unfortunate Joan 
weakened on this point. 

** Give me, then," she said, " a dress similar to 
that worn by the daughters of the bourgeois, a very 
long robe." 

No long robe, or any other, was given to her, 
however, at this time. 

Previous to this period of Holy Week, Joan had 
been allowed to see a Norman priest in her prison. 
This Frenchman, Loyseleur by name, was a spy of 
the English, to whom he communicated all that she 
said to him in confession, he having a notary hidden 
who could hear, through a hole in the wall, and write 
down every word the girl said. 

The better to cause Joan to lose herself, this 



342 The France of Joan of Arc 

traitorous priest instigated her to resistance, and the 
atrocious scoundrel was even one of the three persons 
who alone recommended that she should be put to 
the torture. 

Far better than such a man of God was it to have 
no priest at all, but when, all through Holy Week 
and on Easter Day, when all the world communicated, 
she was deprived of the consolations of religion, the 
despairing girl's illness became aggravated. While 
directly the outcome of the argument about wearing 
man's clothing, another cause of this cruel deprivation 
was that she had said that she would submit to the 
Pope, the Cardinals, the Bishops, and the Archbishops, 
*' only after our Lord being first served." Since she 
could not be compelled to say that she would obey 
the Church Militant first, last, and unconditionally, the 
barbarous Cauchon and a few of the assessors — only 
eight, as twenty-seven absented themselves — sentenced 
this maiden, whose holiness they so well understood, 
to the greatest punishment that they could devise — 
the deprivation of her Blessed Lord on Easter Day ! 
What are we to think of these Judges, inhuman 
wretches, who by their connivance sought to leave 
the maiden more than ever exposed to the dangers 
that she ran, chained to a log of wood, and with 
three of the terrible soldiers of that day in her apart- 
ment ? 

The trial of Joan commenced on the Tuesday 
after Easter. Must she not, abandoned as she was, 
friendless and alone, without even her saints, whose 
visits became more rare when she most wanted them, 
have been seized at this time with doubt ? Had not 
her visions deceived her, indeed, since not only was 



Joan Retracts 343 

she not, as they had promised, delivered, but was 
deprived now even of the consolations of that re- 
ligion in which she had so firmly believed ? Her 
brain was as clear, her mind as acute as that of any 
of us living in this twentieth century. Let us, then, 
put the matter to ourselves, and endeavour to realise 
just what our thoughts would be should we be placed 
in the same terrible situation as the young daughter 
of Jacques Dare and Isabelle Romee. Should any- 
thing so awful be our fate, could the doubt be kept 
away from the mind either that the saintly apparitions 
were nothing but a delusion, or that they had, if real, 
been but lying spirits sent to deceive and lure us to 
our ruin ? For Joan, must not the temptation to 
abjure them have been great at this moment? must 
not she strongly have felt the inclination to follow 
the advice given to her by the friendly Law Doctor, 
Jehan Lohier, before he fled to Rome ? This was 
no longer to continue so stiff-necked, but to say to 
the pitiless assessors : " It seems to me that you are 
in the right and I in the wrong, after all." And yet, 
cast out by the earthly Church and neglected by the 
heavenly Church, whatever her doubts may have been 
the young girl, even while sick, would not give way. 
She would not give the satisfaction to her enemies 
of saying : ** It appears to me that you must be in 
the right, not I." 

While in this sickly condition the good Bishop of 
Beauvais, who doubtless was already tired of this 
affair, did an act of seeming kindness to Joan in 
sending her a fish, a lordly carp. Joan ate the carp, 
which happened to be poisoned, and very nearly died ! 
Much better had it been for her, poor girl, had she 



344 The France of Joan of Arc 

really died ; but the Earl of Warwick, the Captain of 
Rouen, sent his doctors, with strict instructions to 
save her at all costs for the scaffold ! Although the 
physicians saved her life she remained excessively 
ill for a time, during which period, although the cruel 
Judges visited and worried her in her prison, they 
still refused her the opportunity either of confession 
or of receiving the Sacrament before her apparently 
approaching death. That is to say, that to this girl, 
who seemed dying, they had absolutely no mercy, and, 
unless she would consent to put their Church Militant 
of Earth above her Church Victorious of Heaven, they 
refused even to promise her burial in consecrated 
ground. When she asked to be buried in a woman's 
chemise they merely continued the old argument, de- 
manding to know why, if she did not wish for it while 
living, she asked for a woman's chemise when dead. 
Joan's answer was : ** It will suffice if it is quite long." 
They then told her that, unless she obeyed the Church, 
she should be buried as an infidel Saracen. 

With all these delays the Cardinal of Winchester 
was raging. He had hoped that, long ere this, some 
answer would have been dragged out of Joan, one 
which would have dishonoured Charles VH. as the 
companion of a sorceress. Had this but been man- 
aged things would have become at once far more 
secure for Bedford in France, and the Cardinal could 
himself have left for Bale, where he wished to preside 
at the Council which was to decide the fate of the 
Papacy. The Cardinal began to understand that one 
cause of the delay of the Judges in finishing off the 
trial lay in the fact of the antagonism of the Rouen- 
nais to the Bishop of Beauvais, who was already 



Joan Retracts 345 

giving himself the airs of an Archbishop of Rouen, 
and even allowing himself to be addressed as such. 

Henry Beaufort resolved, therefore, to go over the 
head of Rouen altogether, and, in order to baffle the 
dilettante Normans, to cause their rivals the Theo- 
logians of the University of Paris to take the matter 
in hand. He wrote to request them to do this, but 
the original tribunal of Rouen still held on its way, 
and, in the beginning of May 1431, threatened Joan 
for the first time with the fire which should destroy 
both her body and soul. Ten days later, the better 
to subdue her indomitable will, the executioner, with 
all his horrid tools of torture, was introduced into her 
chamber ; but still Joan, whose health had now im- 
proved, remained undaunted. Beholding her fearless- 
ness, a priest named Chatillon, who had previously 
threatened her, became her partisan, defended her 
warmly, and was with difficulty compelled by the 
enraged Cauchon to hold his tongue. 

At this stage arrived from Paris replies from the 
Faculties of Theology and of Law. The former 
condemned Joan as one given over to the Devil, 
impious to her parents, and saturated with human 
blood. The latter was more moderate, and, while 
equally condemning Joan, gave her a loophole of 
escape from punishment. This, said the Faculty of 
Law, should not be enforced if the girl were not in 
her proper senses, or if she ceased from her obstinacy. 
As the letters of the Paris University at the same 
time lauded to the skies the manner in which Cauchon 
had conducted the case, some of the Doctors now 
wished to burn Joan at once. The Cardinal, how- 
ever, first desired a retractation from Joan, one by 



34^ The France of Joan of Arc 

which Charles VII. would be, equally with herself, 
tarred with the brush of heresy and schism. 

A priest was sent to convince the prisoner that 
it was her bounden duty to comply with the dictates 
of that ''light of science," the University of Paris, 
but she declared that, even if she were in the fire, 
she would not go back upon a word that she had 
uttered. 

Towards the end of May a cruel attempt was 
made to obtain from the recalcitrant maiden by guile 
that which even the threatened terrors of death had 
proved fruitless to procure. She was made a promise 
that, if only she would express her submission to the 
Church and assumed woman's clothing, she should be 
delivered from the custody of the English and placed 
in the tender hands of the Church. The three priests 
who made Joan this promise were all known to her ; 
one was her false Confessor Loyseleur, another 
Chatillon, who had so recently defended her, the 
third Pierre Morice, he who had previously so vainly 
endeavoured to persuade the obstinate maiden to 
conform to the views of the University. 

Speaking kindly to her as though they would save 
her, as indeed possibly Chatillon hoped that he might 
succeed in doing, they secured from Joan some sort of 
a promise of retractation. 

Not a word was said by these three priests con- 
cerning judgment or condemnation, but when the 
unfortunate girl was dragged out to the Cemetery of 
Saint-Ouen she found herself placed upon a scaffold 
in the midst of a horrible group consisting of the 
executioner's assistants, armed with dreadful imple- 
ments of torture. The executioner himself waited 



Joan Retracts 347 

with a tumbril below. The stoutest heart, that of the 
boldest of the martyrs, might have quailed at such a 
sight — what, then, must have been the sensations of 
this unhappy young girl when, looking at the multitude 
around her, she beheld naught but glances of hatred in 
all directions ? She was still clothed as a man, and 
by her side were scribes to record her avowals 
and a priest to preach to her with pious exhorta- 
tions. 

Close at hand, upon another scaffolding, stood the 
Cardinal- Bishop of Winchester, with the two Judges 
and thirty-three assessors before whom Joan had so 
frequently appeared during the past five months. 
They were now waiting to enjoy their revenge, to 
triumph in the downfall of the young peasant-girl 
who had braved them all, confuted all their learned 
arguments, and, above all, whose iron will they had 
never been able to subdue. 

The preacher whose glorious privilege it was to 
be able to exhort the sorceress before such an immense 
assemblage, which included many English troops, did 
not lose his opportunity of making the most of this, 
the chance of his lifetime. 

Commencing with the words : ** Oh ! noble House 
of France," the Reverend Doctor of Rouen, whose 
name was Guillaume Erard, turned on the tap of his 
eloquence and let himself go in an endless flow of 
verbose rhetoric. He called Joan a heretic and a 
schismatic without any interruption from her ; but 
when, turning to Joan and raising a warning finger at 
her, he denounced her King also as a heretic and a 
schismatic, she fearlessly cut short his eloquence. 
With a courage worthy of a nobler cause, and in clear 



34^ The France of Joan of Arc 

tones, the brave girl informed the preacher that he 
was mistaken ; that, upon her life, she was ready to 
swear that no nobler man or better Christian existed 
than Charles VII. 

The Bishop of Beauvais angrily cried out to those 
around her to stop her mouth, for this was not the 
retractation that he, the Cardinal and the rest had 
come there to hear. Cauchon himself now angrily 
demanded the prisoner to express her unqualified sub- 
mission to the Church Militant. 

*' I submit to the Pope," replied Joan. 

*' The Pope is too far away," retorted tersely the 
Bishop of Beauvais. And then, unrolling a parch- 
ment, Cauchon commenced to read an act of con- 
demnation to be burned ; one which even in the face 
of the words she had just uttered, was a lie, since in it 
he informed Joan that she had refused to submit her- 
self to the Holy Father and the Council, to whom, as 
will be remembered, she had appealed long ago. 

A curious scene now took place, both upon the 
elevated platform upon which Joan stood and upon 
that adjoining. Whether from any real feeling of 
compassion, experienced for the moment, or for any 
other and more interested reason, the two priests, 
Loyseleur and Erard, now begged Joan to have pity 
upon herself, and to save herself by signing an act of 
recantation of her heresy. Hearing this discussion, 
the Bishop interrupted his reading and waited to see 
the result. He felt that his personal triumph as her 
Judge would be complete should she be prevailed 
upon to retract. Upon the Bishop's platform, many 
of the English dignitaries present with him were 
impatient to see Joan burned at once ; they considered 



Joan Retracts 349 

that enough time had been wasted already. A quarrel 
began, and both the Cardinal's chaplain and his 
secretary angrily accused the Bishop of Beauvais of 
showing undue favour to the maiden who had shamed 
the English arms before Orleans and upon other 
bloody fields. *' You are a liar ! " shouted Cauchon to 
the secretary. ** And you a traitor to the King ! " 
retorted the other. The various dignified officials 
became so enraged that they nearly came to blows. 

Erard meanwhile continued his exhortation, crying : 
** Joan, you will be burned ! Abjure ! " The by- 
standers, many of whose hearts had become softened, 
joined in the argument, many of them begging Joan 
to save herself. One official even, with tears in his 
eyes, vowed that, if only she would yield, she would 
be rescued from the English and given over to the 
Church. 

At length overcome, and in tears, Joan resisted no 
longer and said, '' Very well, I will sign." 

** She has retracted ; how shall I treat her, Mon- 
seigneur ? " inquired the Bishop of the Cardinal of 
Winchester. "You may admit her to penitence," 
replied the Cardinal, whose secretary produced a 
document, which was already written, from his sleeve. 
This was a very short retractation consisting of but a 
few lines. 

The secretary handed a pen to Joan, who, as she 
could not write, subscribed her signature at the foot of 
the paper with the mark of a cross. The commuted 
sentence of imprisonment for life, on bread and water, 
was then pronounced on Joan. 



CHAPTER XXVI 
Joan^s Relapse and Execution 

May 1 43 1 

During the quarrel which had taken place when the 
Bishop of Beauvais had interrupted his reading of 
the act of condemnation, the English soldiers in the 
crowd were in very ill-humour, throwing stones at 
Cauchon and those with him on the raised platform. 
Much more angry, however, became the English, of 
great and little estate, when they found that they were 
to be deprived of the pleasure of seeing Joan burned. 
As the Doctors descended among the excited crowd, 
swords were drawn on them, and it was a wonder 
that they escaped alive. The Englishmen shouted 
furiously, '* Priests, you are not earning the King's 
money ! " Even the Earl of Warwick, a nobleman 
of distinction and valour, who had made the pilgrimage 
to the Holy Land, and was therefore a good Christian, 
exclaimed : ** Things go badly for the King ; the girl 
will not be burned." 

As for Joan, having been admitted to penitence, 
she doubtless expected long and dreary imprisonment 
in a dungeon, perchance in one of those darksome 
dungeons beneath some monastery known in those 
days, and, until much later, as an '* in pace." But there 

350 



Joan's Relapse and Execution 351 

was this satisfaction about her sentence, that she was 
to be handed over to the Church — to be taken away 
from the custody of the English, who thirsted Hke 
tigers for her blood. 

This she had been promised if she should retract, 
and, therefore, with an immense sense of relief, she 
turned to descend from the scaffold upon which she 
had signed her retractation. 

At this moment, imagine the unfortunate girl's 
despair to hear the Bishop cry out to the guards 
around her : '' Take her back to the place from whence 
you brought her ! " 

She had been deceived ! She was to remain, after 
all, in the hands of the English soldiers. Oh, misery ! 
was it but for this that she had signed her act of 
recantation ? Cruel and bitter deception ! 

Through the scowling glances of the angry crowd, 
whose vile epithets resounded in her ears, Joan was 
dragged away, as a lamb by the butcher to the 
shambles. She was broken-hearted, crushed by her 
shame in having given way to fear and retracted, 
still more crushed by the weight of woe at finding 
herself so bitterly deceived. The shouts of the soldiers, 
of the mob, she heeded not — she scarcely heard them 
— a voice louder than all the tumult around her was 
crying aloud in her own bosom, " Oh ! why did I 
give way ? And oh ! what have I, poor child, done 
that I should be subjected to all this ? " 

Upon her arrival at her prison, in accordance with 
her own undertaking made on the scaffold, Joan was 
to assume female attire. No woman was there to aid 
her with friendly hands, but the scowling soldiers, with 
mocking gibes and Immodest words, tore her man's 



352 The France of Joan of Arc 

clothing from her trembling body, clothed her in female 
attire, changed her outward semblance from that of 
a man to that of a woman. 

Now she was at their mercy indeed! It was 
during the few days that Joan remained thus that the 
outrage previously recorded was attempted upon the 
poor girl's honour, at the instigation of the miscreants 
who sought to give her into the power of the Devil, 
who could make no pact with her so long as her body 
remained pure. 

In order to convict her of relapse, her male attire 
was then again offered to her, and she took it and put 
it on. 

It has usually been represented that this was merely 
left by the side of her bed to tempt her, when, of 
her own free will, she readily assumed it. That, after 
the dangers to which she had been subjected, she 
should have done so would seem by no means unlikely, 
and yet, upon consideration, it seems more than prob- 
able that this story was but the invention of her 
enemies, anxious for an excuse to burn Joan, after all, 
as a relapsed heretic. 

More likely to be true seems the story told by 
the huissier Mathieu, who accompanied Joan to the 
place where she died, and who said that he had it from 
her own lips. 

The unhappy Joan was at nights chained in her 
bed, and, according to this sheriff*'s officer, she one 
morning called to the soldiers to unchain her, as she 
wished to rise. They tore the female raiment from 
her body, and left only the man's clothing which she 
had previously worn beside her. After staying in bed 
until midday rather than offend by wearing the clothes 



Joan^s Relapse and Execution 353 

which had been forbidden to her, she was compelled 
to rise, and had, perforce, to reassume her old dress 
as a man. 

Whichever version of the occurrence may be true, 
being once more attired in the forbidden clothing, 
there was no hope for Joan. 

Had anything more been required to increase the 
fury of her enemies against her, it had been supplied 
in an attempt made at this time by Xaintrailles to 
surprise Rouen. 

By this unsuccessful attempt of her old comrade- 
in-arms, which had, however, nothing to do with any 
rescue of the poor girl from her prison, Joan's doom 
had been sealed. Now or never was the time to 
administer a lesson to Charles VII., the master alike 
of Xaintrailles and of the imprisoned heretic. This 
Pretender of a King's sorceress, by the aid of whose 
charms he had vanquished the English, should be 
destroyed root and branch, lest perchance the Devil 
her associate might tear her from her chains, and 
set her once more at liberty to wreak further mis- 
chief. 

Warning was at once given to all of the Assessors 
who had taken part in her trial that the maiden had 
dressed herself as a man once more. The Doctors 
thronged to the castle in which she was confined, but 
could not gain admittance. A number of English 
soldiers barred the way. Fearing that the Doctors 
had come over more to attempt to save Joan, they 
called these men of the Burgundian party " Traitor- 
ous Armagnacs ! " and threatened them with their 
swords. 

The Bishop of Beauvais, after some difficulty 
21 



354 The France of Joan of Arc 

obtained admittance. Having convinced himself with 
his own eyes that Joan had discarded her girl's 
dress, he came out rubbing his hands and exclaim- 
ing gleefully : '* She is caught ! " to the Earl of 
Warwick. 

When interrogated by some of her former Judges 
on the following day, Joan pleaded no compulsion, 
but accepted full responsibility for her deed. She told 
them that, so long as she remained guarded by men, 
the dress which she wore was that which best suited 
her. If removed to *' a more agreeable and secure 
prison," she said, she would dress again as a woman. 
She added, moreover, that she had been deceived, 
since the promises made to her had not been 
kept. 

When menaced, she did not appear alarmed, but 
informed the Doctors that her saints had visited her 
and told her that it was ''great pity to have abjured 
to save her life." 

A great meeting was held in the Archbishop's 
palace, to consider what should be done to the culprit. 
All present there agreed that by her action Joan's 
retractation had been annulled. Whether these priests 
and prelates desired to annul her mitigated sentence 
or no mattered, however, little, for the English were 
now resolved that nothing should save the relapsed 
heretic. Had not the Judges at once condemned Joan 
to the flames, their own lives would have paid the 
forfeit. 

Hurriedly, therefore, they sentenced this most 
unhappy being to be given to the flames, on the 
morrow, at eight o'clock in the morning. 

Poor, unhappy, ill-used Joan ! whose heart would 



Joan's Relapse and Execution 355 

not bleed for her in her distress ? Early on the 
following morning, which was the last day of May, 
a Confessor, named Martin TAdvenu, came to exhort 
her to penitence, for that in an hour or two she was 
to perish in the fire. 

Her courage, which for so long had sustained 
her, now at last gave way. Tearing her hair, Joan 
gave vent to piteous cries. 

'* Alas! can they treat me so horribly and cruelly, 
that my entire body, which was never corrupted, 
should be to-day consumed and reduced to ashes ? 
Ha ! ha ! I would rather be beheaded seven times 
over than be thus burned. Oh ! I appeal to God, 
the Great Judge, against the wrongs wrought upon 
me!" And she wept bitterly. 

Now that the end had come, the Bishop of 
Beauvais seems to have shown a spark of humanity. 
He, who so brutally had refused Joan the consolations 
of religion during Holy Week, now listened to her 
prayer. Marvellous indeed is it to relate that, even 
while condemning Joan to the cruellest death as a 
relapsed heretic, he yet permitted this heretic to 
confess, and partake of the Body of the Lord before 
dying ! 

Even when the monk, I'Advenu, insisted that the 
Sacrament should be brought to poor Joan with the 
full ceremonial of the Church, after at first demurring, 
Cauchon found himself compelled to agree. Then 
the clergy of Rouen, probably as a mark of their 
disdain for the man who called himself their Archbishop, 
and their scorn for him as a Judge, did all in their 
power to lend solemnity to the ceremony. With 
stoles, with bells, and with candles a numerous body 



3S^ The France of Joan of Arc 

of the Rouen priesthood passed slowly through the 
streets, bearing the sacred implements and Holy- 
Sacrament. As they passed, they cried solemnly : 
** Pray for her soul !" and the people, falling onr their 
knees, offered up their prayers for the pure girl about 
to die, by the sentence of the Church, as an accursed 
heretic. A strange anomaly indeed ! and one hard 
to be accounted for after all that had preceded this 
fatal day. 

Having, with many tears, received the Communion, 
Joan told Cauchon that he was the cause of her death, 
which need never have taken place had he but placed 
her in an ecclesiastical prison. And she further told 
him that she appealed from him to God. Then, at 
nine o'clock, they dressed her again as a woman, 
and she was dragged off in a tumbril to the place of 
execution. 

That Joan had firmly believed in her ultimate 
rescue, either by the action of her saints, the interven- 
tion of Charles VH., or that of the people of France, 
there is no doubt whatever. In the Latin report of 
the proceedings during the primary investigation, she 
is recorded upon two occasions, February 27 and 
March 17, as having declared her conviction to this 
effect. 

She then said : '* Some trouble will occur, either 
in the prison or at the time of the judgment, by 
which I shall be delivered — delivered to the great 
victory ! " 

Now, not only had she been deserted by the 
wretched Prince whom she had placed upon the 
throne, deserted by the French people, who made 
not the slightest effort to rise on her behalf, but 



Joan's Relapse and Execution 357 

by her saints she was likewise abandoned. Saint 
Michael, Saint Gabriel, Sainte Catherine, Sainte Mar- 
guerite, Saint Louis, and Saint Charlemagne, in all 
of whom she had put her trust, made no effort to 
extricate her from the terrible situation which was 
the direct result of their promptings. She was face 
to face with an awful and agonising death ; she was, 
merely for doing that which these heavenly messengers 
had commanded, branded as a heretic to the Church, 
and as the companion of Satan ; and yet they wrought 
no miracle on her behalf! They had deserted her 
completely, with the awful result that there she now 
was, seated in a cart with two or three priests and 
the bailiffs officer, Massieu, while around her gleamed 
upwards of a thousand spears in the hands of the 
English soldiers, who hated her. 

But it was not even yet too late ! a miracle might 
occur, like a flash of lightning, to whip her out of 
the turmoil, away over the heads of the astonished 
soldiery, to the Court of Charles VII. — the man whom 
she had sworn, upon her life, to be **the noblest 
Christian of all the Christians." Alas ! there was no 
miracle ! 

As she journeyed on through the streets towards 
the Fish-market of Rouen, poor Joan lamented sadly, 
exclaiming through her tears : '* Oh, Rouen ! Rouen ! 
must I then die here ? " No angry or bitter expression 
escaped, however, from the lips of the forlorn and 
despairing maiden as, moment by moment, she was 
dragged nearer to her doom. One of the two 
Augustine monks who had proved so friendly to Joan 
in the matter of appealing to the Pope was by her 
side ; so also was Martin I'Advenu, who had heard 



358 



The France of Joan of Arc 



her last confession, while even the wretched Loyseleur, 
the traitorous priest who had recommended her torture, 
had a seat with her in the wagon. This latter is 
even reported as having demanded her pardon during 
this fatal journey, to the great anger of the English 
soldiers of the escort, who overheard his words while 
begging forgiveness. 

At length the journey was over, and in the ancient 
Market-place Joan beheld three erections or scaffold- 
ings. One of these was for the Royal Prince, the 
Cardinal-Bishop of Winchester, who was surrounded 
by Bishops and other dignitaries of the Church, among 
whom was Cauchon, her Judge. Upon the second 
platform Joan was compelled to mount, while sur- 
rounded with guards and the three or four who had 
accompanied her in the cart. The third erection, 
at a little distance from the other two, was an im- 
mensely high edifice of plaster, upon which were piled 
up heaps of fagots around a central stake. 

So high was this that the executioner would only 
be able to set the torch to the fagots from below. 
Thus, although in the case of the infamous Gilles 
de Retz and many another noted criminal, it was 
possible, by strangling the victim, to save from the 
terrors of the flames, the executioners would be 
compelled actually to burn Joan alive. Of this, we 
are informed, the man of blood was *'fort marry et 
avoit grant compassion " — that is to say, felt extremely 
sorry. 

The Bourgeois de Paris, in his Journal, gives an 
additional and horrible reason for the height of this 
scaffold, which was that Joan, when even at the point 
of death, might first be made to suffer in her modesty. 



Joan^s Relapse and Execution 359 

when her light outer covering had been removed prior 
to the application of the torch to the fagots from below. 
Were it not that no demoniac cruelty seems to have 
been too great to have been practised, in the name of 
religion, by the churchmen of former days, we should 
have been inclined to doubt this statement of the 
Bourgeois. 

The miserable young girl was not to be burned 
without being subjected to yet more indignities. Her 
Judge, the Bishop of Beauvais, addressed her, remind- 
ing her of all her misdeeds, and exhorting her to 
contrition. With her death so near, the saintly Joan 
did not require these hypocritical words. She had 
already thrown herself upon her knees, calling upon 
the name of God, the Virgin, and the saints. To 
those around her she cried: ** Pray for me!" when 
so affected were all present that, among others, the 
Cardinal of Winchester, Cauchon, and the Bishop of 
Boulogne were moved to tears — this latter prelate 
sobbing aloud most bitterly. 

At this moment, with all around her, even her 
cruel Judges, weeping for her fate, we are told that 
Joan made another retractation — freely confessed her 
error. We decline, however, to believe this state- 
ment, which is supported by the signed attestation 
of no witnesses. To say that she did so was but 
another lie of her enemies, who, not content with 
depriving the noble girl of her life in the most bar- 
barous manner, sought after her death to deprive her 
also of her reputation. 

The tears of the Bishop of Beauvais did not last 
long. Having wiped his eyes, he hardened his heart 
and read aloud the lengthy sentence, which was 



3^0 The France of Joan of Arc 

couched in the most insulting and humiliating terms. 
How could men, let alone churchmen, of any age 
have been able to insult a frail girl about to die, 
one in whom they saw every sign of piety, so far 
as to tell her that she had ''returned to her sin as 
a dog returns to his vomit " ? The horror — the cruelty 
of it all — makes us shudder even now ! It surpasses 
belief that these men, in their great and powerful 
assembly, can have so dishonourably borne themselves 
towards one poor trembling woman, all alone, about 
to be foully murdered. 

After adding the further cruel insult, " We pro- 
nounce thee to be a rotten member, and as such cut 
off from the Church," Cauchon ended his reading by 
saying that, while begging it to excuse Joan from the 
extreme penalty of the dismemberment of her limbs, 
she was handed over to the Secular Power. 

The maiden made no reply to this terrible harangue. 
While her tears fell, she cried for a cross, and an 
English soldier gave her one which he made out of 
two pieces of wood. She placed it under her clothing 
in her bosom, but Massieu and Isambart sent for the 
parish cross of Saint-Sauveur also, and it was brought. 
As she worshipped before it, the friendly Frere 
Isambart endeavoured to comfort the maiden with 
hopes of salvation after her death in heaven. It was 
all the hope now left to her — there was to be, alas ! 
no salvation on earth while she yet lived. Strong 
and young, not yet twenty years of age, she was to 
leave the world, to die, with not an arm, not a voice, 
raised to save her ! 

The English soldiers meanwhile were getting 
impatient. Fearing that they might once again be 



Joan^s Relapse and Execution 361 

baulked of their prey, they cried out to Isambart : 
** How now, priest, will you compel us to dine here ?" 
For it was now midday, and, the officers being de- 
termined to have no more trifling, several sergeants 
were sent up to drag Joan from the hands of the 
priests. 

Roughly the sergeants pulled down from the plat- 
form the warrior-maid whom, all clad in shining armour 
and beneath the folds of her sacred banner, they had 
so often seen charging to death or glory. The death 
was now coming for her, and the glory will remain 
for so long as the great doings of mankind remain 
chronicled in written words. 

She was handed over to the executioner, to whom 
the order was given to perform his duty ; but the two 
monks Isambart and I'Advenu would not desert the 
maid about to perish. Dragged up to the summit of 
the pile of fagots, all hope now abandoned, Joan was 
tied to the stake. But yet one more indignity re- 
mained in the power of her savage Judges to wreak 
upon their defenceless victim, and they would spare 
this saint nothing which devilish ingenuity could 
suggest. She was crowned with an immense paper 
mitre, upon which, in large letters, were inscribed the 
words : 

" Heretique, Relapse, Apostate, Ydolastre!" 

For a minute or two Joan stood thus, looking 
down upon the immense and now silent crowd, when 
she was heard clearly to exclaim : '* Ah, Rouen ! 
Rouen ! I greatly fear that thou wilt suffer for my 
death ! " 



3^2 The France of Joan of Arc 

Meanwhile, the Dominican, Martin I'Advenu, re- 
mained on the fagots beside the martyred maid. Not 
waiting for the priest to come down, the executioner 
applied his lighted torch to the bottom of the pile of 
inflammable material. 

Joan saw the action, saw the little wreaths of smoke 
commencing to ascend. With a cry, she pushed the 
good priest away from her, and implored him to 
descend lest he should share her fate. The good 
Augustine, Isambart de la Pierre, had also a narrow 
escape, only descending from the scaffold a moment 
sooner. L'Advenu scrambled down through the 
rising flames, and then Cauchon thought it time to 
have a last word with his victim — to extract some 
final confession of her apostasy from the woman whose 
murderer he was. The Bishop of Beauvais had his 
final word from Joan. It was not what he had hoped 
for, which was some accusation against Charles VII., 
some declaration to the effect that the ungrateful 
Prince for whom she was giving her young life was 
equally guilty with herself. 

Joan's last word to the Bishop of Beauvais, uttered 
reproachfully, was : '' Ah ! Bishop, I die through you. 
Had you but put me in the prisons of the Church this 
would not have happened I " She defended the un- 
worthy King to the last, saying of Charles : *' Whether 
I have done well or done ill, it was not by his 
counsel." 

Then the poor creature felt the heat, and, as the first 
flames licked her form she cried out for water — for 
holy water ! The monk whom she had pushed from 
the pile still stood, holding up the cross, close to that 
which had now become a raging, fiery furnace. Ac- 



Joan's Relapse and Execution 3^3 

cording to his testimony, her last words were : '* My 
voices were from God, and they did not deceive me." 
But whether, amid the crackling and roaring of the 
devouring flames, he heard Joan's words aright, who 
can tell ? More likely by far was it that the last 
words uttered in her agony were not a mere defence 
of the visions which had deceived her, but prayers to 
the God in whom she firmly believed, and to whom 
her pure soul was now to render its account. Indeed, 
a score of years later both of the monks declared that 
her last cry was that of *' Jesus ! " Thus died Joan of 
Arc, in the flower of her age and youthful beauty, and 
we who deplore it, must ascribe her cruel fate not 
more to the hatred of her enemies than to the clerical 
bigotry and universal superstition of the day in which 
she lived. 

Born with a mission in which she firmly believed, 
her coming was not in vain. She had taken up arms 
on account of the pity that there was in France, and, 
although her victories were productive of no im- 
mediate good, she herself ever showed an example of 
humanity both to friend and foe, the English captives 
and wounded being as much the object of her care as 
those of her own nation. 

To France the advent of Joan meant much more 
than was at first recognised either by her enemies, 
who slew her, or her friends who stood idly by and 
allowed her to be slain. She found the English 
strong, while France was torn between the r^val 
factions. She left the English weakened by her 
deeds, which were well-nigh miraculous. Seeing them 
thus weakened, five years after the death of Joan, 
Philippe de Bourgogne became reconciled with 



3^4 The France of Joan of Arc 

Charles VII. The two parties being thus reunited, 
combined against the common foe, with the result 
that fifteen years later, her former possessions all lost, 
the town of Calais was all that remained to England 
in the France where, before Joan, she had reigned 
supreme. 



THE END 



INDEX 



Advenu, Martin 1', 355, 357, 361, 
362 

Agincourt, Battle of, 118 et seq. 

Albret family, 80 

Albret d', Constable of France, 64, 
80, 117, 129, 233 

Alen9on, 291 

Alen9on, Due d', 127, 129, 291 

Alexander III., 100 

Alfonso v.. King of Aragon, 167 

Alizon du May, 225, 262 

Anjou, 190, 225, 226 

Anjou, Duchesse d' (Queen of 
Sicily). See Yolande 

Anjou, Louis, Due d' (King of 
Sicily), 16-19, 20, 42, 43, 77, 137, 
205 

Armagnac, Comte Bernard d', 57, 
64, 77, 78,79 ; his cruelty, 80, 81, 
82 ; enters into alliance with 
English, 83, 98 ; becomes head of 
Orleanists, 135 ; occupies Paris, 
136 ; made Constable of France, 
136-137 ; his patriotism, 137- 

138 ; besieges Harfleur, 138 ; 
becomes master of Paris, 138- 

139 ei seq. ; besieged by Jean Sans 
Peur, 143 et seq. ; imprisoned, 
146 ; murdered, 148 ; his corpse 
mutilated, 149 

Armagnac family, 79, 80 

Armagnacs, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 
91, 92, 99, 100, no. III, 128 ; 
massacres of, 147-149 ; invest 
Paris, 149, 150; theirpower, 154; 
and Charles VII., 157, 167, 172, 
189, 227, 242, 298; in conflict 
with Henry V. of England, 181 ; 
decline of, 197, 222 ; in Orleans, 
233 ; 236, 237, 244, 245, 302 

Aragon, 167, 172 

Arques, 115 

Arras, 98, 99 

Arras, Tranquet d', 306 



Arthur, Duke of Brittany. See 

Brittany 
Arundel, Earl of, 231 
Avignon, 40 ; Popes of, 20, 40, 

See also Benedict xiii. 185 
Avranche, Bishop of, 339 

Bajazet, Sultan of Turkey, mas- 
sacres French army, 75 
Bar, Comte de, 49 
Bar, Due de, 90, 97, 225, 242 
Barbazan, 181 

Bastard of Orleans. See Dunois 
Bastard of Vendome, 303, 320 
Bastille, The, 87, 88, 151 
Bastille des Tournelles, 282-283 ; 

assault of, 286-288 
Bastilles of Orleans, 232 
Battles : 

Agincourt, 118 et seq. 

Beauge, 190 

Crevant, 220 

Patay, 292, 293. 

Poitiers, 104, 132 

Roosebeke, 24 

Verneuil, 220. See also Orleans 
Baudricourt, de, 257, 259, 260, 261, 

262 
Bavaria, Louis, Duke of, 77, 93, 94, 

97 
Beaufort, Henry, Cardinal-Arch- 
bishop of Winchester, 186, 187 ; 
his wealth, 188; 216, 221, 223, 
231, 296, 297 ; and the purchase 
of Joan of Arc, 310, 315; 319-326; 
and the trial of Joan of Arc, 330, 

344, 345, 347, 349, 358, 359 
Beauge, Battle of, 190 
Beauvais, Bishop of. See Cauchon 
Bedford, Anne, Duchess of, 328, 

329, 330 
Bedford, John, Duke of, 109, 166, 
171, 182, 196, 197 ; made Regent 
of France, 220 ; 221, 222, 223, 226, 



365 



366 



Index 



228, 231, 236, 241, 242 ; and the 
Church, 244 ; and the Armag- 
nacs, 245; 295, 296, 297, 319 

Benedict XIII. Pope of Avignon, 
55 ; excommunicates Charles VI., 
73, 74 ; and Council of Pisa, 100, 
10 1 ; flight of, 186 

Berri, Duchesse de, 41, 49 

Berri, Duchy of, 242 

Berri, Jean, Due de, 16-19, 20, 23, 
26, 29, 32, 33, 37 ; his generosity, 
41 ; his extortions, 41 ; 42, 44, 
46, 67, 94, no, 117, 119, 137 

Black Prince, The, 132 

Blanchart, Alain, 158, 163 

Blois, Jean de, 34, 43 

Boniface IX., Pope of Rome, 55 

Boucicaut, Marechal de, 55, 74, 
110, 130 

Bourbon, Louis, Due de, 19, 24, 37, 
117, 130, 156, 185, 235 

Bourges, Peace of, 83 

Bourgogne, Dues de. See Jean 
Sans Peur, Phihppe le Bon, 
Pliihppe le Hardi 

Bourgogne, Jean de, 311 

Bouteiller, Guy Le, 174, 243 

Brabant, Dues de : 
Antoine, 119, 127, 129, 
Jean IV., 221, 223 

Bretagne, Jean IV., Due de (de 
Montfort). See Brittany 

Bretigny, Treaty of, 108 

Brittany, 155 ; Dukes of : 
Arthur, 132, 185 
Francis II., 205, 207, 213, 219 
Jean IV., 34, 40, 43, 44, 60, 132 
Jean V., 60, 227 

Bruges, 23, 24 

Buch, Captal de, 173, 224 

Burgundians, 78, 83, 84, 104, 114, 
115, 116, 136. 137, 145. 146, i47» 
150, 154, 169, 174, 181, 183, 193, 
195, 198, 223, 226, 293, 298, 
302, 303, 306, 316, 325, 333. See 
also Cabochiens, Jean Sans Peur, 
Philippe le Bon. 

Burgundy, County Palatine of, 22 ; 
Duchy of, 22, 220 

Burgundy, Dukes of. See Jean 
Sans Peur, Philippe le Bon, 
Philippe le Hardi 

Butchers of Paris, 87 et seq. ; 139, 
147 

Caboche, 88, 92, 96 
Cabochiens, 88, 94, 97, 98, 198, 236, 
237, 238 



Caen, besieged and taken by 
Henry V. of England, 143 

Calais, 67, J7, 83 

Canterbury, Archbishop of, 163, 
187, 188, 296 

Capeluche, 151, 152 

Cards, Playing-, 52 

Castile, 167, 171 

Catherine de France, 108, 167, 168, 
170, 179, 180, 192, 245 

Catherine of La Rochelle, 249 

Cauchon, Pierre (Bishop of Meaux 
and Bishop of Beauvais), and 
Henry Beaufort, 187, 216, 315, 
316 ; and the University of 
Paris, 316, 345 ; and the Arch- 
bishop of Rouen, 316, 344, 345 ; 
claims right to judge Joan of 
Arc, 319 ; purchases Joan of Arc 
for the English, 320; his examina- 
tion of Joan of Arc, 326, 330, 331, 
332, 337, 338, 339, 342 ; his treat- 
ment of Joan of Arc, 342, 343 ; 
and Joan of Arc's recantation, 
348-351 ; and Joan of Arc's 
execution, 353, 354, 355, 356, 
358, 360, 362 

Champdivers, Odette de, 50 

Charles, Dauphin of France, 85, 
137; becomes head of Orleanists 
(Armagnacs), 157 ; makes peace 
with Burgundians, 169 ; and 
HenryV. of England, 170,171; his 
counsellors, 172 ; and murder of 
the Due de Bourgogne, 172, 173 ; 
disinherited by Treaty of Troyes, 
179, 180 ; his property confiscated, 
183 ; opposes Henry V. of Eng- 
land, 189, 195, 197 ; and Gilles 
De Retz, 206, 213. See Charles 
VII. 

Charles I., Due de Lorraine, 225, 
226, 262, 323 

Charles III. of Navarre, yy 

Charles V,, 11, 12, 59 

Charles VI., commencement of his 
reign, 13-15 ; his love of disguise, 
15, 39 ; fealty of Seigneurs to, 
16 ; placed under guardianship 
of Louis, Due de Bourbon, 19 ; 
influence of his uncles, 19-37 ; 
crowned at Reims, 19, 23 ; at the 
battle of Roosebeke, 24 ; his 
lust of blood, 25, 28 ; quashes 
the rebellion of Paris, 25-27 ; 
marriage, 30, 31 ; and threatened 
invasion of England, 32 ; his 
extravagance, 38, 39 ; influence 



Index 



367 



of Valentina Visconti, 40, 50 ; his 
tour through France, 40-42 ; his 
debauchery, 40 ; his " justice," 
41 ; his terrible rage at at- 
tempted assassination of Clisson, 
44 ; loses his reason, 46 ; lucid 
interval, 47 ; disguised as satyr, 
48 ; his madness returns, 49 ; 
his mistress, Odette de Champ- 
divers, 50 ; his good deeds, 50 ; 
becomes popular, 51 ; plays cards, 
52 ; 65, 70, 73, ^^, 89, 94, 97, 98 ; 
amusing anecdote of his madness, 
99; 136, 162, 163, 171, 172; grants 
crown of France to Henry V. of 
England, 179, 183 ; death, 196 ; 
funeral, 197 

Charles VII., accession of, 217, 218; 
his supposed illegitimacy, 218, 
245, 246 ; his mistresses, 218 ; 
his early unpopularity, 219 ; 
seeks aid in Scotland, 219, 
223 ; his claim to crown recog- 
nised by Comte de Foix, 224 ; 
and Yolande, 224, 242 ; marriage, 
225 ; breaks with Armagnacs, 
227; his impecuniosity, 227, 242 ; 
his favourites, 227, 228 ; his 
indifference to the fate of 
Orleans, 241 ; makes treaties 
with Scotland, 242 ; his divided 
party, 242 ; his consecration, 246- 
249, 290, 293, 294, 295, 314 ; 
Joan of Arc's message to, 259, 
260 ; sends for her, 262 ; his 
meeting with, 264-268 ; and the 
defenders of Orleans, 275 ; be- 
sieges Paris, 297 ; his indifference 
to the fate of Joan of Arc, 321- 
323 ; the English and, 353. Se& 
also Charles, Dauphin of France 

Charles le Hardi, 225, 226 

Charolais, Comte de, 92, 174, 193, 
197. See Philippe le Bon 

Chartres, 189 

Cirasse, Guillaume, 96, 97 

Clarence, Thomas, Duke of, 158, 
182, 190 

Clement VII., Pope of Avignon, 
20, 40, 55 

Clermont, Comte de, 235, 236, 237, 
238, 239 

Cloves, Comte de, 311 

Clisson, Olivier de, 34, 42, 43, 63, 
67, 202, 205 

Colonna, Otto, loi, 186 

Compidgne, 302, 309, 324, 325 

Constance, Council of, 10 1, 186, 187 



Courtecuisse, Jean, 188 

Craon, Jean de, 205 

Craon, Pierre de, 42, 43, 44, 46, 130, 

205 
Crecy, 104 
Crevant, Battle of, 220 

Dance of Death, 200 

Dare, Jacques, 250, 252 

Dare, Jean, 252, 272 

Dare, Jeanne. See Joan of Arc 

Dare, Pierre, 252, 272 

Daulon, Jean de, 272, 285, 301 

Dauphins, The, 85 ; origin of title, 

180. See also Charles, Louis 
Denisot, 88, 92 
Dessessarts,78, 86, 87, 88, 95 
Dom-Remy, 249, 250 254 
Dorset, Earl of, 112 
Duchatel, Tanneguy, 173, 174, 183 
Dunois, Jean, Comte de (the Bastard 

of Orleans), 69, 175, 234, 239, 

240, 241, 264, 271, 272, 274, 275, 

279, 280, 281, 282, 286 
Durazzo, Charles de, 20 

Embrun, Archbishop of, 271 
England, threatened invasion of by 

Philippe le Hardi, 31 
Erard, Guillaume, 347, 348, 349 
Exeter, Duke of, 182, 194 

Fastolfe, Sir John, 236, 238, 281, 
291, 292 

Fezenzaguet, Vicomte de, 81 

Fezenzac family, 79 

Flanders, Louis de Male, Count of, 
23, 28, 29 

Flanders, revolution in, 22, 23, 
28 ; pillage of, 24 ; alUance with 
England, 82 ; commercial treaties 
with England, 153-155, 171, ^95, 
325 

Foix, Comte de, 223, 224, 228 

Foix, Comtesse de, 203 

France, peasantry of, their cruelty, 
23 ; sorcery in, 51, 52 ; various 
languages spoken in, 78, 79 ; 
lawlessness in, 201 et seq. ; 
Seigneurs of, 204 ; their bar- 
barity, 202-204, 207 ei seq. 

Francis II., Duke of Brittany. Sefi 
Brittany 

Gam, David, 119, 121 
Gaucourt, Sire de, 285 
Gerson, 95, 99 
Ghent, 23, 24, 29, 92 



368 



Index 



Giac, Dame de, i68, 169, 171, 173, 

174 
Giac, Sire de, 168, 169, 203, 228 
Glansdale, Sir William, 232, 280, 

281, 287 
Glendower, Owen, 104, 107 
Gloucester, Humphrey, Duke of, 
143, 158, 166, 193, 196 ; becomes 
Protector of England, 220 ; mar- 
ries Comtesse Jacqueline, 221 ; 
makes war on Philippe le Bon, 
221 ; marries Eleanor Cobham, 
223 ; quarrels with Henry Beau- 
fort, 231, 296 
" Goddam," 284, 285 
Gregory XII., Pope of Rome, 74 ; 
and Council of Pisa, 100, loi ; 
resigns, 186 
Grenobles, 242 

Gueldre, Due Adolphe de, 63, 204 
Guesclin, Bertrand Du, 11, 138, 202 
Guisay, Hugues de, 48, 49 
Guise, seized by Philippe le Bon, 

226 
Guyenne, 16, 19, 20, 82, 155, 167 

Hainaut, 30, 220, 240 
Harcourt, Comte d', 190, 203 
Harfleur, 108,109, iii, 112, 138 
Henry IV., King of England, 61, 62, 

82, 83, 102, 244 
Henry V., King of England, ac- 
cession, 103 ; claims French 
crown, 104 ; nature of his claims 
to France, 104, 164, 165 ; pre- 
pares to invade France, 107 ; 
claims French territories, 108 ; 
and Catherine de France, 108, 
167, 170, 179, 180, 192 ; sails 
for Harfleur, 109 ; lands in 
Normandy, no ; besieges Har- 
fleur, III ; enters the city, 112 ; 
his cruelty, 1 12, 113, 128, 143, 162, 
165, 182 ; his immense losses, 114; 
his discipline, 115; marches on 
Calais, 114 et seq. ; at battle of 
Agincourt, 118 et seq. ', treat- 
ment of prisoners, 132, 133 ; 
again invades France, 143 ; his 
conquests, 143, 144, 154 ; his 
diplomacy, 155 ; besieges and 
takes Rouen, 157-165 ; his 
ambitious views, 166 ; flouts 
Jean Sans Peur, 167, 168; cap- 
tures Pontoise, 170, 171 ; granted 
the crown of France, 176-180, 
183 ; marriage, 179, 180 ; takes 
Sens, 180, 18 1 ; besieges and 



takes Melun, 181, 182 ; enters 
Paris, 182, 183 ; as ruler of 
France, 184 ; his alliance with 
the Church, 185, 186 ; quarrel 
with ecclesiastics, 188, 189 ; op- 
posed by Dauphin, 189, 190 ; be- 
sieges and takes Meaux, 191, 192 ; 
contracts disease, 192, 195 ; de- 
cline of popularity in France, 
I93> 194 ; death, 196 ; as a 
priest, 215 ; and Isabelle de Lor- 
raine, 226 ; and the Church, 244 
Henry VI., birth, 192; his guardian, 

196 ; proclaimed King of France, 

197 ; unpopularity in France, 
198, 217, 231, 244, 245 ; not 
crowned King of France, 246, 
290, 295 ; returns to France, 
297 ; and the trial of Joan of 
Arc, 319 ; crowned at Notre- 
Dame, 326-328 

Holland, 23, 30, 220, 240 
Hungerford, Sir Walter, 119 

Isabeau of Bavaria, her marriage 
with Charles VI. of France, 30 ; 
her " First Entry " into Paris, 
38 ; separates from Charles VI., 
50 ; her children, 58 ; her rela- 
tions with Louis, Due d' Orleans, 
58, 59, 64, 6$, 67, 68, 74 ; abducts 
Charles VI., 75; yy, 81, 91, 139, 
168, 171 ; agrees to the Treaty of 
Troyes, 180 ; and illegitimacy of 
Charles VII., 245, 246 

Isabelle de France, 61, 62, 70, 104, 
108, 197 

Isabelle, Duchess of Milan, 16 

Isabelle of Lorraine, 225, 226 

Isambart, 360, 361, 362 

Isle-Adam, Sire de 1', 146, 147, 193, 
194 

Jacqueline, Comtesse, 220, 223, 240 
Jacqueville, Helion de, 93, 95, 96 
Jean, Due de Berri. See Berri 
Jean IV., Due de Brabant. See 

Brabant 
Jean IV., Duke of Brittany. See 

Brittany 
Jean V., Duke of Brittany. See 

Brittany 
Jean de Valois, 132 
Jean, Gunner, 234 
Jean, Sans Peur, Due de Bour- 
gogne, 57, 63 ; his jealousy of 
Due d'Orleans, 64 ; succeeds 
Philippe le Hardi, 64, 65 ; seizes 



Index 



369 



the Dauphin, 66 ; attacks Eng- 
lish in Calais, ^y ; assassinates 
Louis, Due d'Orleans, 67, 68 ; 
welcomed at Paris, 70, 73 ; ex- 
onerated for murder of Due 
d'Orleans, 73, 74 ; at battle of 
Hasbain, 74 ; orders massacre 
of unarmed Liegeois, 74, 'j^ ; his 
early experiences in war, y^ ; 
makes peace with partisans of 
Orleans, ^6 ; tortures and puts 
to death Montaigu, yj ; routed 
by English at Calais, T']^ 78 ; 
dominates Paris, 78 ; party 
formed against him, 78 et seq. ; 
alliance with English, 82 ; and 
Peace of Bourges, 83 ; his influ- 
ence over Charles VI., 84, 85 ; 
supported by University of Paris, 
85-87 ; and the Butchers of 
Paris, 88 et seq. ; and the Coun- 
sellors of the Dauphin Louis, 90 ; 
and people of Ghent, 92, 95, 96 ; 
driven out of Paris, 97 ; attempts 
to regain Paris, 98 ; again makes 
peace with Orleanists, 99 ; quar- 
rel resumed, 100 ; his secret un- 
derstanding with Henry V., 107, 
no, 117, 128,144, 153, 157, 163; 
outwitted by Comte d'Armagnac, 
136, 138, 139 ; his counterstroke, 
140 ; invests Paris, 143, 145 ; his 
troops enter the city, 146 ; in 
Paris, 150 ; endeavours to pre- 
vent massacre of Armagnacs, 
151 ; ruler of France, 153 et seq. ; 
flouted by Henry V., 167, 168 ; 
his mistress, the Dame de Giac, 
168, 169 ; again makes peace 
with Armagnacs, 169 ; makes 
new treaty with Henry V., 171 ; 
Orleanist hate renewed, 171 ; plot 
to murder him, 172, 174 ; death, 
174 ; results of murder, 176 ; 
appeal for justice, 183, 219 

Jeanne Dare (d'Arc). See Joan of 
Arc 

Jeanne de Bourbon, 58 

Jeanne de Navarre, 16, 60, 62, 132 

Jeanne, Princess, 227 

Joan of Arc, Walsingham on, 215- 
217 ; Dunois and, 239, 240 ; an- 
nounces her mission, 243 ; pre- 
pares to set out, 246 ; declares 
Charles VII. legitimate heir to 
French Crown, 246 ; her common 
sense, 246-249, 308, 309 ; and 
consecration of Charles VII., 249, 

22 



290, 293-295; birthplace, 249, 250; 
childhood, 251 et seq. ; parent- 
age, 250,252; and " Les Dames," 
254 ; and the Saints, 255 ; her 
dreams, 255, 256 ; and the 
" Voices," 256-258, 277, 278, 297, 
322, 324, 332, 337, 354, 363 ; re- 
fuses suitor, 258 ; her interview 
with Baudricourt, 259 ; her mes- 
sage to the Dauphin, 259, 260 ; 
the Dauphin sends for her, 262 ; 
wins support, 261, 262 ; her 
escort, 262, 263 ; her parents 
oppose her, 263 ; in male attire, 
263, 328-339, 341, 344, 347, 352 ; 
her purity, 263, 272, 276 ; op- 
position to her meeting with 
Charles VII., 264 ; meets the 
Dauphin, 267 ; her divination, 
267, 269, 270, 283, 284, 287, 309, 
325 ; summons English to raise 
the siege of Orleans, 271 ; her 
virginity, 272, 276, 310-312, 328 ; 
her battle equipment, 272 ,273 ; 
and the shedding of blood, 273, 
305 ; arrival before Orleans, 
276, 279 ; nature of her mission, 
278 ; her physical endurance, 
279-280 ; insults of English, 
280, 288 ; in command, 281 ; 
jealousy of leaders concerning, 
282, 283 ; her first combat, 282 ; 
her next combat, 282, 283 ; and 
the Sire de Gaucourt, 286 ; at 
assault of Bastille des Tournelles, 
286-288 ; wounded, 286, 298 ; 
growing belief in her super- 
natural powers, 289, 290 ; and 
Comte de Richemont's jealousy 
of, 291 ; and battle of Patay, 
292, 293 ; her increasing forces, 
293 ; takes Troyes, 293, 294 ; 
endeavours to conciliate Philippe 
le Bon, 294 ; her triumphal 
march, 295 ; and the siege of 
Paris, 297-301 ; commencement 
of her downfall, 298-301 ; last 
exploits of, 301-303 ; and the 
siege of Compiegne, 302, 309, 
324, 325 ; capture of, 303, 309, 
310 ; sold to Jean de Ligny, 303, 
313; her blunted susceptibilities, 
305-306 ; seeks rewards, 307 ; 
purchase of by English, 314-315, 
320, 321 ; delivered into the 
hands of Philippe le Bon, 324 ; 
handed over to the English, 326 ; 
the examining Commission and, 



370 



Index 



319, 326, 330 et seq. ; her friends 
among the Commissioners, 339, 
340 ; her illness, 340, 342 ; be- 
trayed by her confessor, 341, 342 ; 
her trial commences, 342 ; the 
University of Paris and, 345 ; 
her recantation, 345-349 ; sen- 
tenced to imprisonment, 349 ; 
English soldiers demand that she 
shall be burned, 350, 360 ; com- 
pelled to don women's clothes, 
351, 356 ; sentenced to be burned, 
354 ; her confession heard, 355 ; 
takes the Sacrament, 355-356 ; 
her hope of rescue, 356, 357 ; her 
execution, 356 et seq. ; her last 
words, 363 

Joanna I., Queen of Naples, 20, 
166, 167, 221 

John XXIII., Pope of Rome, loi, 
186 

Joinville, Sires de, 250, 251 

Juvenal des Ursins, 14, 50, 93, 96, 
97, 99, 118 

La Hire, 190, 203, 233, 237, 238, 

241, 274, 276, 277, 283 
Languedoc, 40, 243 
Laon, Bishop of, 37 
La Rochelle, 243 
La Fontaine, Jean de, 338 
Laval, Baron de, See Retz 
Lefebvre, Picard de Saint-Remy, 

118, 119, 125, 129, 133 
Legoix family, 88, 89, 96 
Lidge, 74, 195 
Ligny, Jean de, 303, 313, 314, 319, 

320, 323 
Li vet. Canon de, 187 
Lohier, Jehan, 339, 343 
Lollards, The, 102, 103 
Lorraine, Duchy of, 225, 226, 242 
Lorraine, Due de, 225, 226, 262, 323 
Louis XI., 219 
Louis, Dauphin of France, 85, 86, 

88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 96, 97, 98, 

114, 137 
Louis de Mdle, Comte de Flandre, 

23, 28, 29 
Louis, Due d'Anjou. See Anjou 
Louis, Due de Bourbon. See Bour- 
bon 
Louis, Due d'Orleans. See Orleans 
Louis, Duke of Bavaria, 77, 93, 94, 

97 
Louvet, 172 

Loyseleur, 341, 346, 348 
Luxembourg, Duchy of, 195 



Magon, 172, 293 

Maignelais, Antoinette de, Baroness 
de Villecquier, 218, 219 

Malestroit, Jean de, 206 

Marguerite de Hollande, 63 

Marguerite de Valois, 50 

Marie d'Anjou, inspires courage 
of Charles VII., 218 ; marries 
Charles VII., 225 ; and Joan of 
Arc, 264, 323 

Marie of Avignon, 249 

Marie Therdse, 329 

" Marmousets," The, 37, 42, 61, y6 

Martin V., Pope of Rome, 186 

Massieu, 357, 360 

Mauvais, Charles le. King of Na- 
varre, 60 

Meaux, 187, 189 ; siege of, 191, 
192, 296 

Meaux, Bishop of. See Cauchon 

Mehun-sur-Ydvre, 241 

Melun, 149 ; siege of, 181, 187 

Merlin, The Wizard, 256 

Metz, Jean de, 261, 263 

Millet, Charlotte, 279, 282 

Millet, Colette, 285 

Montaigu, Grand Master, y6, yy 

Montfort, Jean, Due de, 36, 40, 43, 
44, 60 

Montjoie, 133 

Mortimer, Edmund, 103, 104 

Nantes, Bishop of, 207, 213 
Naples, King of, 41 
Naples, Queen of, 20, 166, 167, 221 
Navailles, Sire de, 173, 174, 224 
Nevers, Jean, Comte de, 119, 129 
Normandy, 82 ; claimed by Henry V. 
of England, 108 ; Henry V. lands 
in, no; 144, 155, 167, 222, 297 
Norwich, Bishop of, 28, 187 
Notre-Dame, Cathedral of, 26, 95, 
326 

Oldcastle, Sir John, 103 

Orleans, Charles Due d', 78, 83, 97, 
117, 119; imprisonment of , 129, 
132, 133, 134, 153, 156, 197, 240, 
243 ; and Orleans, 275 ; and Joan 
of Arc, 279, 325 

Orleans, commencement of the 
siege, 228 et seq. ; Battle of the 
Herrings, 236-238 ; Charles 
VII. 's indifference to fate of, 
241 ; succour from neighbouring 
towns, 243 ; mission of Joan of 
Arc concerning, 243 ; the be- 
sieging forces, 273 ; leaders of the 



Index 



371 



I, 274, 275 ; arrival of 
Joan of Arc, 276 ; besieged at- 
tack Bastille des Tournelles, 288 ; 
siege raised, 289 
Orleans, Louis, Due de, 39, 43, 46, 
49 ; his character and attain- 
ments, 57, 58 ; his relations with 
Queen Isabeau, 58, 59, 64, 65, 
67, 68 ; his possessions, 59, 60 ; 
challenge to Henry IV. of Eng- 
land, 61, 62 ; his profligacy, 
62,63, 69 ; quarrel with Philippe 
le Hardi, 63 ; and Jean Sans 
Peur, 64 et seq. ; given Normandy 
by Charles VI,, 65 ; defies the 
University of Paris, 66 ; recon- 
ciUation with Jean Sans Peur, 
66, 67 ; makes war on English, 
67 ; people against him, 6y ; 
retires to monastery, 67 ; assas- 
sinated by Jean Sans Peur, 68 ; 
his death mourned, 69 ; his mur- 
derer exonerated, 73 ; Orleanist 
party, 73-76 et seq., 80, 89, 100, 
i57» 169, 245, 246. See also 
Armagnacs 

Paris, Rebellion of, quashed by 
Charles VI., 25-27 ; under Comte 
d'Armagnac, 138 et seq. ; be- 
sieged by Jean Sans Peur, 143 
et seq. ; massacre of Armagnacs, 
147-152 ; besieged by Armag- 
nacs and Enghsh, 149, 150 ; 
plague in, 150, 198 ; under Jean 
Sans Peur, 171, 179 ; Famine in, 
176, 199 ; handed over to Henry 
v., 182 ; and death of Charles VI., 
196 ; besieged by Charles VII., 
297 ; Henry VI. crowned at, 
326-328 

— Bishop of, yy 

— Parhament of, 86, 96, 139 

— University of, 66, 73, 84, 85, 86, 
87, 88, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 139, 
150, 182, 198,281, 319, 326; and 
Joan of Arc, 345 

Pasquerel, Jean, 272, 283, 312 
Patay, Battle of, 292, 293 
Pavilly, Eustace de, 86, 88, 91, 93 
Petit, Jean, 73 

Philip VI., King of France, 22 
Phihppe le Bon, Due de Bourgogne, 
1 36, 1 74 ; his mistresses, 1 75 ; calls 
Henry V. of England to throne 
of France, 176-179, 184 ; defeats 
Armagnacs, 192 ; rupture with 
Henry v., 194, 195 ; and Flanders 



i95> 325 ; and the Duke of 
Gloucester, 220 ; at war with 
Duke of Gloucester, 221 ; and 
Duke of Bedford, 222, 295, 296 ; 
gains new possessions, 222 ; 
siezes Guise, 226 ; and siege of 
Orleans, 240 ; and Joan of Arc, 
294 ; and defence of Paris, 301 ; 
actively helps the English, 302, 
325 ; and the capture of Joan of 
Arc, 310 ; agrees to sale of Joan 
of Arc, 320 ; obtains possession 
of Joan of Arc, 323, 324 ; de- 
livers Joan of Arc to the English, 
325, 326 ; reconciled with Charles 
Vn., 364 

Phihppe le Hardi, Due de Bour- 
gogne, 16-19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26, 
29, 30, 31-33, 37, 46; his pos- 
sessions, 59, 60; and Henry IV., 
61, 62 ; quarrel withDucd'Orleans, 
63, 64 ; death, 64 

Pierrette, 249 

Pisa, Council of, 74, 100 

Plague, 150, 198 

Playing-cards, 52 

Poitiers, 270, 271 

Poitiers, Battle of, 104, 132 

Pontoise, 170, 171 

Popes of Avignon, 20, 40, 55, 73, 74, 
100, loi, 185, 186 

Popes of Rome, 55, 74, 100, loi, 186 

Poulengy, Bertrand de, 261, 263 

Pucelle, The. See Joan of Arc 

Regnault de Chartres. See Re ms, 

Archbishop of 
Reims, 249, 267, 281 
Reims, Archbishop of, 238, 239, 270, 

295» 301, 321 
Rene d'Anjou, 225, 233, 242, 323 
Retz, Gilles de, birth and parent- 
age, 204, 205 ; personal charac- 
teristics, 206 ; his religion, 206, 
210 ; and murder of children, 
207-209 ; and Devil-worship, 
209 ; his death, 210 ; at the 
siege of Orleans, 274, 275 
Richard II. of England, 61, 62, 103, 

109 
Richelieu, Cardinal de, 214 
Richemont, Arthur Comte de, Con 
stable of France, 213, 226, 227 
228, 242, 291, 292, 293 
Rividre La, 37, 47, 90, 95 
Roche-Guyon, Dame de la, 243 
Romance dialects, 78 
Roosebeke, Battle of, 24 



372 



Index 



Rouen, 140, 154 ; besieged and 
taken by Henry V. of England, 
157 et seq., 326 ; University of, 
319 

" Saint- Anthony," " Fire of," 195 
Saint-Denis, 297 ; Festivals of, 14 
Saint-Denis, Abbey of, 81, 94, 187 
Saint-Denis, Abbot of 74, 187 
Saint-Germain-rAuxerrois, Dean of, 

74 
Saint-Pierre-le Moustier, 302 
Saint-Pol, Comte de, 78, 171, 179 
Sainte-Genevieve, 87 
Saint-Severe, Marechal de, 274, 275 
Saintonge, County of, 242 
Salisbury, Earl of, 232, 234, 274 
Seguin, 270 

Shrewsbury, Earl of. See Talbot 
Sicily, King of. See Anjou, Louis, 

Due d' 
Sicily, Queen of. See Yolande 
Soissons, 98, 302 
Sorel, Agnes, 218 
Suffolk, Earl of, 231, 232, 234, 289, 

291 

Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, 231, 

232, 236, 281, 282, 289, 291, 292 
Toul, 258 
Touroulde, Marguerite la, 309 



Tremouille, Sieur de la, 96, 97 
Tremouille, Georges de la, 228, 242, 

291 
Troyes, 293 
Troyes, Jean de, 89 
Troyes, Treaty of, 179 

Vaucouleurs, 250, 251 
Vaurin, Jean de, 118, 119 
Vaurus, Bastard of, 190, 191, 203 
Vemeuil, Battle of, 220 
Vertus, Comte de, 91 
Villecquier, Baron de, 219 
Visconti, Valentina, 39, 40, 58, 69, 
70, 135 

Warwick, Earl of, 158, 182, 231, 
316, 319, 344 

Wenzel IV. of Bohemia, 56, 60 

Winchester, Cardinal of. See Beau- 
fort 

Wyclif, John, 102 



Xaintrailles, Poton de, 
233, 249, 274, 353 



190, 192, 



Yolande, Princess, Duchesse d' 
Anjou, Queen of Sicily, 43, 156, 
168, 218 ; her diplomacy, 224 
et seq.y 242 ; and Joan of Arc, 
264, 272, 323 



\ 



BD 6.8. 



Pfinted by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. 



























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